UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH LIBRARY
3 11 A A 011^055 T
SOCSCI
DA 890. E4 H77
Lectures on the
antiquities of
re 1 igious
Edinburgh
*»
Date due
90 Oh 0 2
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2013
http://archive.org/details/lecturesonreligiedin
ta
LECTURES
ON THE RELIGIOUS
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH.
EDINBURGH :
PRINTED BY P. TOFTS, CARRUBBEU's CLOSE.
LECTURES
ON THE RELIGIOUS
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH;
//
READ TO THE
HOLY GILD OF S. JOSEPH,
BY A MEMBER OF THE GILD.
FIRST SERIES.
B2K itf) permission of Superior*.
^EDINBUEGH:
J. MARSHALL, 18 SOUTH COLLEGE STREET.
LONDON: C. DOLMAN. GLASGOW: H. MARGEY.
MDCCCXLVI.
Also, by the same Author,
A Short Series of Lectures
on the
PAROCHIAL AND COLLEGIATE ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
Superiority of the Eeligious Life — Its origin — Not
different in kind from the obligation due by all Chris-
tians— Uses of its austere practices — Vows — Its effects
in the world — Testimony of unprejudiced witnesses
— Ascetics of Egypt — Rules of S. Basil, S. Augustin,
S. Benedict, and S. Francis — Religious life first re-
vived in Edinburgh ; p. 1.
LECTURE II.
Introduction of the Religious Life into Scotland — S.
Ninian — Hy or Iona — S. Columba — Culdees — State
of Monasticism in Scotland in the beginning of the
12th century — King David I. — Legend of the mira-
culous Cross — Not to be considered entirely as cre-
dible as history, yet of some value — Abbey of Holy
Rood founded ; p. 35.
LECTURE III.
Description of Holy Rood Abbey, given by Father
Hay — Charter of King David — General arrangement
11 CONTENTS.
of the Monastery — Its church pourtrayed by Father
Hay — Its altars — Inventory of its jewels, vestments,
and ornaments — Their catalogue not unmeaning —
Rule of S. Augustin — Adopted by the Regular Canons
— Their habit — Matins in the Abbey — Its daily rou-
tine— Hours of Prayer — Picture of the church at the
midnight mass of Christmas — Mr Carlyle cited as
evidence of the reality of such recollections ; p. 63.
LECTURE IV.
History of the Abbats — Alwin — Osbert — William
— Fergus, lord of Galloway, takes the habit of a
Religious — Also John, bishop of Whitherne — Abbat
Walter, prior of Iona — Abbat Helias — Adam — The
Black Rood of Scotland falls into the hands of the
English — It graces the shrine of S. Cuthbert — Events
in the wars of England and Scotland connected with
Holy Rood — Marriage of King James II. with Mary
of G-ueldres — Abbat Archibald Crawfurd — Marriage
of King James IH. with Margaret of Denmark — Foun-
dation of the Palace laid — Dean Robert Bellenden,
Abbat — Sword presented by Pope Julius H. to King
James IV., now preserved among the Regalia — Re-
flections on the restraints put upon heretics — Mar-
riage of King James IV. with Margaret of England
— Its ceremonies — Part of the present Palace built
by King James V. — Abbey burnt in earl of Hert-
ford's invasion — Finally destroyed by the army of the
Protector Somerset; p. 101.
CONTENTS. Ill
LECTURE V.
Last Abbat of Holy Rood — Burgh of Canongate —
Its dependence on the Abbey — Right of Sanctuary —
Remains of monastic buildings — Cemetery — Cere-
monies at the consecration of a Catholic cemetery —
Care of monks in general for the dead — Concluding
remarks on the influence of the Cross of Christ in
the world; p. 133.
THE PROLOGUE.
The kind indulgence, with which the former Lec-
tures on the Parochial and Collegiate Antiquities
of Edinburgh were received, has encouraged me to
give another course of Readings on the Remains
of our Religious or Monastic Institutions, Holy
Rood Abbey was by far the most important of
these. Its annals are part of the national history
of Scotland ; and, for this reason, they are fuller
and more interesting than the records of any other
house of religion in Edinburgh. It has therefore
claimed a larger share of time and attention than
may at first seem to be its due.
In order to make this very short account of it
accessible to the greatest number of readers, it
\ l PROLOGUE.
has been thought advisable to offer it by itself,
without waiting for the series of Readings on other
Ecclesiastical Antiquities not yet noticed, which
may follow.
J. A. S.
Ladyeday, 1846. \_
35, Alva Street.)
LECTURES
ON THE EELIGIOUS
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH,
LECTURE I.
»^Dear Brethren of the Holy Gild. — It
seems to be by the favour of our good God, that
we are allowed to resume our studies in the an-
tiquities of Edinburgh at this time of the sacred
year. For the festival of Allhallows, which is
just past, is very nearly allied to much that has
engaged our thoughts lately, and that now lies
before us. In the multitude, without number, of
the just made perfect, whose bliss was the theme
of the Church's song at that holy tide, are those
great saints whom our pious forefathers loved to
call their own, SS. Margaret, and Cuthbert, and
Giles, to whom our city owed so much. And in
the same blessed company there are doubtless
A
55 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
not a few whose time of trial was passed amidst
the very scenes which we are about to visit, and
whither our studies have already led us. It was
their genius that designed and executed many of
the edifices which we still behold with admiration.
Under the old doorways, and up the narrow wind-
ing stairs, which antiquaries love, they have often
glided on errands of charity. The dark vaults of
S. Giles* and Trinity College churches have-
looked down on their prayers and devout com-
munions; and have once and again echoed with
the " Requiem iEternam" for their souls. And
therefore, about the time of Allhallowmas, when
holy Church bids us rejoice, because God hath
glorified his saints, it would be ungrateful not
to remember more especially those whose his-
tory fills so sweet a page in the annals of our
native land. Let us take comfort, too, in the
thought that they are not unmindful of us. Who
can tell whether it may not be from their prayers
that the desire to know more of them has sprung
up in our hearts, which has brought us together
to-night ? We may at least humbly place our
readings, and all else that interests us, under their
patronage, and resolve to continue our study of
Antiquity, not as heretofore, perhaps, for its own
sake, but for the love of its saints, and in their
invisible presence.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 3
After the parish and collegiate churches of
Edinburgh, which we have lately visited in suc-
cession, our attention is now invited to its Reli-
gious or Monastic Institutions, its hospitals and
houses of~ mercy for the poor, its crosses and
holy wells, and generally to every memorial of
the old religion of Scotland which has not as yet
met our view. I trust that the interest which
our former studies were well fitted to create, and
the lessons derived from them, have not been for-
gotten. Many of the reflections which then sug-
gested themselves, may, with great advantage, be
often recalled to mind as we proceed. We have
traced the institution of parish churches to a very
distant time, as well as the far older obligation of
devoting a tithe of goods to the support of the
ministers of religion. We have observed the
dignity which was conferred on church ceremo-
nial by the reunion of secular canons in colleges ;
and we have been reminded of the affectionate
reverence of a Christian people for its prelates,
and of their pious munificence towards God's
house, resulting from their deep love of the Re-
deemer's Presence in the blessed Eucharist. But
admirable as are the lessons which we have
hitherto been taught, there are others in store
for us of a higher kind. For none of these in
their nature contains any thing which properly
4 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
deserves the name of heroic. They are no more
than the necessary expressions of gratitude for
the gift of a pure faith, of a belief in the autho-
rity of the Church, and in the great doctrine of
grace whence all the sublimity of her worship is
derived. The enduring proofs of these disposi-
tions which our forefathers gave were indeed
beautiful and costly, but they could not have
done less, without betraying a want of fidelity to
the sacred name which they bore. Even the
votaries of a false religion would have put them
to shame; for these often lavish gifts on their
superstitions, with a profusion which Christians
do not always surpass. And in the old law, the
code of minute regulations which Moses promul-
gated, by the command of God, hardly left the
practice of these duties optional with the Jewish
people.
But we are now entering on a nobler field of
enquiry than the last. We are about to ascend
from the monuments of ordinary devotion, to
contemplate a manner of life without parallel on
earth, and founded on principles which are in-
comprehensible to worldly minds. The stately
edifices which the piety of other ages erected,
and where it surrounded with gorgeous ceremo-
nial the great act of sacrifice, are themselves but
figures of that interior temple of the Holy Ghost.,
ANTIOUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 5
which is reared by sacramental grace in the Chris-
tian breast. The splendour of gold and gems
fades away before the living sacrifice of a heart
wholly penetrated by divine love, of a body mor-
tified in every sense, of an intelligence whose
every thought is brought into captivity to the
obedience of Christ, of a will moving only in har-
mony with God's, which is the law of heaven.
And this is the portrait of saintly perfection, which
it was the great aim of the institution of monas-
teries, in every age, to realise.
There has never been a time, in the history of
the Christian Church, when the principles of the
monastic life did not govern the conduct of all
who aspired to follow their Lord in the path of
heroic virtue. They are founded indeed on His
own blessed words. When He was asked to
show the way of perfection, He answered, " Go
and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and
come follow Me." * And at another time He
said, " Every one that hath left house, or breth-
ren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or
children, or lands, for My name's sake, shall
receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life
everlasting." f In the Catholic Church, no word
of His fails to have a living meaning. Even by
* S. Matth. xix. 21. f S. Matth. xix. 27.
6 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
the confession of her enemies, she has found the
means of fulfilling to the very letter every com-
mand of the New Law, without straining, or
apparent effort ; and still more wonderfully with-
out deranging the order of society, while many
have unhappily done so, by attempting to follow
isolated injunctions of Scripture, as their own in-
terpretation led them. Thus the community of
goods, of which we read in apostolic times, has been
made an imperative law of their body by some
of the most dangerous sects which arose out of the
religious revolution of the 16th century. Where-
as the Church, in the fulness of her power to
fix the meaning of Scripture, draws a distinction
between what is binding as a law of primary obli-
gation on all, and an evangelical counsel, as she
terms it, which "all men do not receive, but they to
whom it is given." The motive of obedience is in
both cases the same ; love to Him who, in His infi-
nite charity, " emptied himself," as S. Paul says,
" taking the form of a slave." According to the
degree to which it is enkindled in the Christian
heart by this mystery of mysteries, the Incarna-
tion of the Son of God, the redeemed man
labours to save his soul by obeying the precepts
of the gospel, or is incited to a more perfect
imitation of the divine self-renouncement.
While the Apostles lived, and in the age im-
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 7
mediately succeeding them, this nobler love was
not rarely found among the disciples of the Cru-
cified. It sustained many martyrs in their fiery
trial. But in the course of time, the fury of
persecution abated, and at last entirely ceased ;
and then, sad to say, the love of many grew
cold. Still the monastic life existed, and owing
to the general relaxation of early discipline, it
then began to appear more conspicuous. Then
S. Antony, and S. Macarius, and other holy
fathers in the deserts of Egypt, made a stand for
declining religion, and like S. John Baptist
called the world to penance by their austere
lives. But as a great apologist for monasticism
says truly, " Neither S. Antony, nor S. Hilarions
nor S. Pacomius, nor the others who imitated
them, pretended to introduce a novelty, or to
outdo the virtue of their forefathers. They only
desired to keep alive the tradition of the exact
practice of the gospel, which they saw relaxing
from day to day. They always set before them
as models the ascetics who had preceded them ;
as, in Egypt, the disciples of S. Mark, who lived
in the suburbs of Alexandria, shut up in their
houses, praying, meditating on Holy Scripture,
labouring with their hands, and taking no food
till nightfall. They set before them the primi-
tive Church of Jerusalem, the Apostles them-
8 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
selves, and the prophets. They did not seek to
make themselves admired by an extraordinary
life, but only to live as true Christians." * And,
in another place, when he would recommend the
study of their history, he says, " What makes
the monks appear at this day so extraordinary,
is the change which has come to pass in the man-
ners of other men ; as the most ancient buildings
have become singular, because they are the only
ones which have resisted a long succession of
ages. And as the most skilful architects care-
fully study what remains of old buildings, know-
ing well that their art is upheld, in these latter
days, only by these admirable models ; so Chris-
tians ought minutely to observe what is practised
in the most regular monasteries, in order to see
living examples of Christian morality. I know
that it happens sometimes that length of time
has introduced some relaxation : just as there is
no building which time has wholly spared, and
there are many of which nothing remains but
shapeless ruins. Nevertheless, by studying these
ruins, by searching for even the least fragments
of these precious remains of antiquity, and com-
paring them with what we find written in books,
we come to know the appearance of the entire
works, and to penetrate the true sense of the
* Fleury, Moeurs des Chrestiens, § 41.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 9
books. Thus we shall profit much by seeking
for monastic practices, if we also combine with
it the study of the Rules of their authors, of the
Canons, of the Gospel, and of the lives of the
saints of all times. Let us, moreover, allow that
the monasteries are treasures of all kinds of an-
tiquities. It is there that the most of the ancient
manuscripts are found, which have been so use-
ful in re-establishing learning. It is there that
the works of the fathers, and the canons of coun-
cils, are found. They are discovering every day,
in the written customs of the old monasteries,
very curious ecclesiastical antiquities. In a word,
the purest practice of the gospel is preserved
there, while it has been decaying more and more
in the world." *
It is remarked by S. Bernard, who, as you know,
was a monk in the middle ages, and an abbat,
that, "among other institutions of penitence, the
discipline of the monastery deserves to be called
a second baptism ; for the perfect renunciation
of the world, and the singular excellence of the
spiritual life, in which the society of the cloister
far surpasses all kinds of life in the world, mak-
ing those who profess and love it like angels, and
unlike men; yea it renews in man the divine image,
* Fleury, ut supra, § 43.
10 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
making us like Christ, as in baptism. And we
are, as it were, baptized anew, when in it we
mortify our members which are upon earth,
again put on Christ, and are planted together in
the likeness of His death. And as in baptism
we are delivered from the power of darkness,
and are translated into the kingdom of eternal
brightness, so also, in the second regeneration of
this holy purpose, we in like manner escape from
the darkness, not of one original offence, but of
many actual sins, into the light of virtues, apply-
ing to ourselves the saying of the Apostle, " The
night is passed, the day is at hand."*
It is then a great error to suppose that the mo-
nastic life is different from that to which every
Christian is bound by the engagements of bap-
tism. The monastic orders are set in the world by
Almighty God, for this very purpose among others,
to remind us, who are exposed to so many temp-
tations, of what is expected from us, and to warn
us, lest in our easier vocation we not only fall
short of perfection, but fail in our very salvation.
An ancient and beautiful allegory sets forth the
way to heaven under a threefold aspect. One re-
presents the life of a secular in the world, and it
is winding and intricate, to show how many
* De Praecepto et Dispensatione, xvii.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 11
things beset our path to tempt us astray. The
ecclesiastical life is shadowed forth by a road
more direct than the last, but not so straight as
the way which denotes the religious life; for this
ascends by an unbending course to the heavenly
glory. This allegory further shows us steps lead-
ing from the two first paths into the highest, to
teach us that, by the divine mercy, it is possible,
among the crowded ways of men, to walk alone
with God ; and that not only the ecclesiastic, but
the poor humble laic, may pass through the temp-
tations which would make his path winding and
long, by a course straight as the religious.
It is thus that the author of The Baptistery
" Thrice happy they who earthly stores have sold,
Dearer sublunar joys, domestic ties,
And form themselves into one holy fold,
To imitate on earth the happy skies,
With vigil, prayer, and sacred litanies ;
Their souls to heavenly contemplation given,
While earthly hope within them buried lies ;
Their sole employ to purge the evil leaven,
And render their cleansed souls a fit abode for heaven.
" And happy they, though more of earth's alloy
Creeps in the scenes of their terrestial state,
Who dwell 'mid social hearths and home employ,
Yet 'mid the world do at God's altar wait !
12 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
They too may live beside the heavenly gate,
And give their fleeting hours to eeaseless prayer,
Beside the sad, the sick, the desolate;
Christ's poor their friends, His little ones their care, —
Their self-rewarding toil their brethren's toils to share.
Yea, love may give thee wings by social hearth
Which shall outstrip the Heaven-girt anchorite,
And virgin choirs removed from scenes of earth ;
Train thee 'mid crowded towns to pray aright ;
To labour and withdraw from things of sight,
Till vanities around thy pathway prove
Spurs on thy road to heaven, thy weakness might ;
While step from step thy ways from earth remove
To that straight path lit up by everlasting love.*
Another remarkable attestation of the identity
of monasticism with the spirit of the gospel, I
cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting,
though you may think, with some reason, that I
have lost myself in this vast subject. It derives
a touching interest from the recent history of its
accomplished author. For it is to be found in
the last volume which issued from the pen of Mr
Newman, before he made his submission to the
Church, at the feet of a poor monk. After hav-
ing drawn from Holy Scripture the portrait of an
Apostolical Christian, as he calls him, he conti-
nues: "And next ask yourselves this question, and
* Baptistery, p. 15.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 13
be honest in your answer. This model of a Chris-
tian, though not commanding your literal imita-
tion, still is it not the very model which has been
fulfilled in others in every age since the New
Testament was written ? You will ask me in
whom ? I am loth to say ; I have reason to ask
you to be honest and candid ; for so it is, as if
from consciousness of the fact, and dislike to have
it urged upon ns, we and our forefathers have
been accustomed to scorn and ridicule these faith-
ful obedient persons, and in our Saviour's very
words to " cast out their name as evil, for
the Son of Man's sake." But, if the truth must
be spoken, what are the humble monk, and the
holy nun, and other regulars, as they are called,
but Christians after the very pattern given us in
Scripture ? What have they done but this, —
continue in the world the Christianity of the
Bible ? Did our Saviour come on earth sud-
denly, as He will one day visit it, in whom w7ould
He see the features of the Christians He and His
Apostles left behind them, but in them ? Who
but these give up home and friends, wealth and
ease, good name and liberty of will, for the king-
dom of heaven ? Where shall we find the image
of S. Paul, or S. Peter, or S. John, or of Mary,
the mother of Mark, or of S. Philip's daughters,
but in those who, whether they remain in seclu-
14 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
sion, or are sent over the earth, have calm faces,
and sweet plaintive voices, and spare frames, and
gentle manners, and hearts weaned from the
world, and wills subdued ; and for their meek-
ness meet with insult, and for their purity with
slander, and for their gravity with suspicion, and
for their courage with cruelty ; yet meet with
Christ every where, — Christ, their all-sufficient,
everlasting portion, to make up to them, both
here and hereafter, all they suffer, all they dare,
for His name's sake?"*
If the institution of monastic life is regarded
in the light of Christian discipline carried to the
highest perfection, we are furnished with a solu-
tion of all that must otherwise seem unaccount-
able in its practices. A spare diet and long fasts
conquer the love of delicacies, and weaken the
onset of more terrible temptations. But that
they are in general hurtful to health is disproved
by the great age which many inmates of the
cloister attain. Holy poverty is the antidote to
avarice and selfishness, just as implicit obe-
dience is to pride and self-will. The sweet yoke
of Christ, borne in the life of continence, gives
the spirit the mastery over the body. Silence is
the enemy of detraction and idle words. The hours
* Newman's Sermons on the Subjects of the Day, Serm. xix.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 15
of prayer and divine psalmody, ever returning,
banish spiritual sloth and melancholy. And the
unremitting labour, either of the hands or of the
mind, with no hope of gain, but for the sake of
the poor, secures all the advantages of employ-
ment in a lawful calling, without its dangers.
A loftier view of monastic practices, has, in-
deed, been taken up by some pious writers, who
have regarded them as the consequences, rather
than as the means of spiritual perfection ; as if the
souls which had once tasted the sweets of heavenly
communion lost for ever the capacity of drawing
further pleasure from the world. The former
solution is perhaps the true one in the beginning
of the religious life ; this supposes an approach
to the sanctity of the blessed above, which is
usually attained only by a long course of training.
Here, too, lies the strength of those vows
which bind the happy soul for life to the re-
nouncement of all that the world holds dear. It
is the same ardent charity, inspiring a gene-
rous confidence in His power, who has implanted
the desire of perfection, to fulfil it abundantly.
Hence no fear of change, or of an altered pur-
pose, checks the resolution of making a complete
and final surrender. And it is surprising that
the religious vows should seem so repugnant to
the minds of those who are ready, often on a
16 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
sudden and capricious impulse, to give up their
liberty, their fortunes, and their very selves, into
the keeping of another, by the solemn engage-
ment of marriage, which must ordinarily last till
death. It would be strange, indeed, if the mu-
tual affection of two mortal beings for each other
were a bond more lasting and secure than the
devotion of a ransomed creature to the God who
redeemed it with His own blood. And if it is
honourable, as a holy Apostle tells us, to
enter into the state of marriage, which is sealed
by a vow, it cannot, certainly, be less so to dedi-
cate one's self to a course of life which another
inspired Apostle has declared to be a more excel-
lent way. Monastic vows, indeed, are not so
old as the days of S. Antony ; but it was ever
regarded as a sin, for one who had entered on a
life of retirement, to leave it for the world ; and it
was visited, in some cases, with a sentence of ex-
communication.*
It is a favourite theme with many superficial
observers to compare the penances of the reli-
gious orders, with the tortures inflicted on them-
selves by some Greek sects, and by the Hindu
fanatics of our own time. To such an objection
it would be a sufficient answer to say that the
* Fleury, Moeurs des Chrest., §41.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 17
motive and intention of the Christian religious
must make his acts, though apparently resemb-
ling those of the heathen, in reality wholly
different. The German philosopher Schlegel, in
his History of Literature, has a passage of re-
markable beauty, in which he refutes this very
objection : —
" More enquirers than one," he says, " have
been very fond of observing the coincidence be-
tween the life of entire abstractedness and un-
citizenship, recommended by some of the Greek
sects, and that adopted by the Christian recluses.
Not only Plato, but even Aristotle himself, the
most practical of philosophers, is inclined to give
to the life of retirement, and meditation de-
voted to internal energies, a decided preference
over that of external exertion. But even if
we should be disposed to admit that the in-
dividual recluse may thus be furnished with
a good opportunity for cultivating his own
intellect, there is no question but the whole
society must be a loser by the most culti-
vated intellects being withdrawn from its service.
The principle that man, in order to reach his
highest perfection, must learn to give up himself
and his bodily enjoyments, is one which cannot,
I think, be much controverted ; but that sort of
living death, and that series of penances and
B
18 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
martyrdoms which are in credit among the Indian
devotees, have an evident tendency to stupify
and blunt the mind, to lead us into a world of
sleepy superstition, and, above all, to nurture
within us a sort of spiritual pride and vanity
which it should, above all things, be the object
of a philosopher to avoid. According to the
true spirit of Christianity, the external abstrac-
tion from the duties of citizenship ought to be
connected with the highest internal activity, not
only of the spirit, but of the heart, and thereby
re-operate, in the most beneficial manner, on all
the constitutions of the society which is aban-
doned. The whole activity of citizenship, all its
duties and labours are, after all, directed only to
a few leading purposes, and confined within cer-
tain limits. There remains even yet a wider
sphere for the exercise of that restless activity by
which man is tempted to struggle for every thing
that is within his reach. This is afforded, for
example, in the first ages of rational develop-
ment, by the sciences and the arts of peace.
When the state is so far advanced that these are
taken into the circle of active employments, there
still remain the needful to be assisted, and the
sorrowful to be comforted ; or, if these be all re-
moved, there remain yet higher duties, such as
to prepare men for ends more exalted than any
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 19
duties of citizenship, or to watch over the truth
in the midst of times of moral relaxation, to
guard it from the slow poison of forgetful ness,
and transmit it to posterity in all its original
soundness and integrity. These are the things
which draw a line of essential distinction between
those Christian recluses, who renounce the world
that they may live entirely for their high calling,
and the sluggish degradation of the indolent and
self- torturing Hindoos."* Thus, instead of a
comparison, there is the strongest contrast be-
tween the Christian and the heathen recluses,
which must appeal powerfully to all unprejudiced
minds in favour of the monks.
But what would the world come to, it is often
urged, if every one were to follow the counsels
of perfection, and enter on a life of monastic
austerity ? Such a possibility seems indeed as
yet sufficiently distant to allay the fears of those
who anticipate, in a universal religious life, the
destruction of the business, the pleasure, and the
frivolities of the world, and even its continuance.
But we must ever remember that the grace to
desire and to follow the perfect Rule of the Gos-
pel, in poverty, continence, and obedience, is
the fruit of a special vocation from God. It is
* Schlegel, History of Literature, Lect, v.
20 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
in the power of no man to choose to be a monk,
just as he would fix on a profession or trade in
life. To a few only here and there it is granted,
together with the supernatural ability to fulfil
their choice, according to a law known only to
God's electing love. It may be, therefore, safely
left to His infinite wisdom to find the means of
reconciling a life which Himself has counselled
with the orderly government of all His other
works. The laws of nature and of grace have
hitherto worked together without jarring or in-
terference, even when the natural order has had
to give way to the higher power of grace, as in
the instance of miracles.
As we are to spend many pleasant hours, I
trust, in wandering among the ruins of our own
religious houses, it seemed necessary to take a
general view of the great principles which could
produce results so full of beauty and still living
interest ; for these are not so often dwelt upon
as the fruits of justice and benediction which
they brought in their train. But if we have arrived
at a right conclusion regarding the secret of the
monastic life, it will not surprise us that its deeds
were beneficent, and that its memory is blessed.
As its great object was perfectly to fulfil the con-
ditions of beatitude which the Redeemer an-
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 2i
nounced in His Sermon on the mount, it was a
consequence inevitable that His promises should
come to pass. His own earthly life was one pro-
longed act of charity, and it was the model of the
monastic. Hence the religious Orders have always
been the great comforters of the distressed, the
friends of the poor, the guardians and patient
instructors of little children. They were often
honoured to win whole kingdoms for Christ; for
the early missioners of many lands besides Britain
were monks. Like their Master they could work
moral miracles, enlightening the blind, humanis-
ing the savage, humbling the loftiest intellects to
the docility of a child. Like Him, too, they
have " endured great opposition from sinners
against themselves," and still endure it, thus
earning the benediction which is promised to
those who "are reviled and persecuted, and against
whom all that is evil is spoken untruly, for His
sake." Verily " their reward is great in heaven."
But lest it may be thought that a Catholic
is a prejudiced witness in favour of monasticism,
let me offer the testimony of one whom no reli-
gious sympathy unites with it. Among those who
are strangers to the obedience of the Church, Pro-
vidence has raised up many advocates for the des-
pised monks; and the great difficulty is from among
so many attestations in their behalf, to choose the
oo
LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
best. I have taken the latest ; and it is still farther
recommended by the independent character of
the writer. He is connected with no school or
party, either in religion or politics, but has de-
voted a long and laborious life to deep research
into historic records. He is also a clergyman of
the Church of England.
" It is quite impossible to touch the subject of
monasticism,,, says Mr Maitland in his Dark
Ages, " without rubbing off some of the dirt that
has been heaped upon it. It is impossible to get
even a superficial knowledge of the mediceval his-
tory of Europe, without seeing how greatly the
world of that period was indebted to the Mon-
astic Orders, and feeling that, whether they were
good or bad in other matters, monasteries were
beyond all price in those days of misrule and tur-
bulence, as places where, it may be imperfectly,
yet better than elsewhere, God was worshipped — as
a quiet and religious refuge for helpless infancy and
old age, a shelter of respectful sympathy for the
orphan maiden, and the desolate widow — as cen-
tral points whence agriculture was to spread over
bleak hills, and barren downs, and marshy plains,
and deal its bread to millions perishing wTith hun-
ger, and its pestilential train — as repositories of
the learning which then was, and well-springs for
the learning which was to be — as nurseries of art
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 23
and science, giving the stimulus, the means, and
the reward to invention, and aggregating around
them every head that could devise, and every
hand that could execute — as the nucleus of the
city, which in after days of pride should crown
its palaces and bulwarks with the towering cross
of its cathedral.
" This, I think, no man can deny. I believe
it is true, and I love to think of it. I hope I see
the good hand of God in it, and the visible trace
of His mercy, that is over all His works. But if
it is only a dream, I shall be glad to be awakened
from it, not indeed by the yelling of illiterate
agitators, but by a quiet and sober proof that I
have misunderstood the matter. In the mean
time, let me thankfully believe that thousands 01
the persons whom Robertson and Jortin, and other
such very miserable second-hand writers, have
sneered at, were men of enlarged minds, purified
affections, and holy lives — that they were justly
reverenced by men — and, above all, favourably
accepted by God, and distinguished by the high-
est honour which He vouchsafes to those whom
He has called into existence, that of being the
channels of His love and mercy to their fellow
creatures." #
It is now nearly 1600 years ago, since the asce-
* Dark Ages, Preface.
24 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
tics of Egypt began to set an example to the world,
as the followers of Apostolic Rule. At first they
lived apart in the desert, far removed from human
dwelling; afterwards some of them took up their
abode in the cities and towns. Prayer, pious
reading, manual labour, and the strictest austeri-
ties filled up their time. They were clothed in
poor, rough garments, and their food was spare and
coarse. Those who lived quite alone were called
Anachorites, for that reason ; and sometimes Ere-
mites or Hermits, because their home was the desert.
S. Paul, the first Hermit, is generally considered
as the father of this severest order of Ascetics.
S. Antony gathered them into communities,
though they still lived in separate cells, near one
another. These recluses were called Coenobites,
because they had every thing in common ; and
Ascetics, or men who exercised themselves in
spiritual combat. But they are best known by
the name of Monks or Solitaries, for the words
have the same meaning. It is a name sometimes
given without distinction to all the Religious
Orders, but incorrectly. For it properly belongs
only to the disciples of a strictly contemplative
Rule. The members of every order are called
Regulars, because they have vowed obedience to
some Rule. Thus, too, their state is called Reli-
gion, or the Religious Life, and themselves Re-
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 25
ligious, for they are bound to one another by
especial ties of charity.
The regulations under which these Egyptian
communities lived were at first very various and
arbitrary, depending on the will of the Superior,
who was called the Abbat or Father, and. some-
times the Archimandrite or Governor. S. Pach-
omius seems to have been the first who prescribed
a fixed Rule for a number of monasteries, early
in the fourth century. Towards the middle of
the same age, S. Basil the Great, archbishop of
Caesarea, drew up another, as a guide of life for
some communities that were under his care.
It was so much approved, that it gradually took
the place of every other then known, and has con-
tinued till this day to regulate the monastic or-
ders throughout the East.*
The monasteries were the resort of persons of
every kind. " Their true use," says Fleury,
" was to conduct to the highest perfection the
pure souls who had preserved the innocence of
their baptism, or the converted sinners who de-
sired to purify themselves by penance» There-
fore they received persons of every age and con-
dition, young children, whom their parents offer-
* See Hospinian, De Or. Mon. iii. A book full of infor-
mation on the subject of Monasticism, but whose opinions
must be received with caution, as those of an enemy.
26 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
ed, to bide them betimes from the perils of the
world ; old men who sought to finish their life in
a holy manner; married men whose wives con-
sented to lead the same life, on their part. All
these different persons were provided for in their
rules." *
The monks were at first only laics. After the
year 392, when the Emperor Theodosius passed
a law allowing them to live in cities, communi-
ties began to arise in the chief towns of the East,
under Superiors or Archimandrites, who were
priests.f But at the council of Chalcedon in 451 ,
monks were still reckoned among laymen. In
the course of years, their great virtues, and pro-
bably the demand for priests, recommended them
for ordination to the bishops, and their houses be-
came great schools for the education of the clergy.
For four hundred years after their establish-
ment in the deserts of Egypt, the monasteries
were under the jurisdiction of the bishops. The
first exemption was granted to the monastery of
S. Martin's, at Tours, in 670, by Pope Adeoda-
tus; and it s remarkable that the Pope himself
declared that it was contrary to the practice of
tradition of the See of Rome, and made only at
the instance of the bishop of Tours himself, and
* Fleury, Moeurs des Christ. § 4.
+ Dollingeu, Hist, of the Church, Cox"s Trans, ii. 285.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 27
other bishops.* In the same century several
monasteries in the East were exempted from
episcopal authority, and placed under the Pa-
triarch of Constantinople.
The cloistral life was not confined to men.
Many pious women were united together in the
same devout purpose. Some of them retired to the
desert, like the monks, and otherslived in the towns,
either in community, or sometimes in the houses
of their relations. The first association of conse-
crated virgins of whom we read in history was
governed by the sister of S. Antony. The su-
perior of these convents of women were called,
in Syria, Amma, which means Mother.
Meanwhile, the example of the recluses of
Egypt was followed in Palestine and Syria.
Thence the practice of the monastic rule passed
to Armenia and Persia. S. Athanasius is said
to have brought it with him to Italy, during his
exile, in 340. About thirty years later, S. Mar-
tin founded the first monastery in France, near
Tours. He was attended to his grave, in 397,
by two thousand monks. S. Augustin, about
the year 389 instituted an Order of Religious
near Tagaste in Africa; and after his consecra-
tion to the see of Hippo, he laid the foundation
of another Order, since illustrious in the Church,
* Dollinger, ut sujira.
28 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
— the Canons Regular who are called by his name.
His rule* is next in date to S. Basil's, and is
followed by many other religions besides the
Regular Canons, as we shall see by and bye.
Donatus, a few years later,carried the monastic in-
stitute into Spain. About 430, S. Patrick brought
it from Rome to Ireland, whence it passed into
our own country, and some of the German pro-
vinces, and not improbably into England.
The most famous of all the Rules is S. Bene-
dict's, "f" and his order, in its manifold branches, is
by far the most illustrious of those purely mo-
nastic, both for sanctity and learning, which has
ever appeared. This extraordinary man was
born in Italy in 480. He was incited, while a
student in Rome, to become a monk, and about
the year 529 he built a monastery on Mount
Cassino, in Campania, which afterwards became
the mother-house of his order. His disciples
were bound by solemn vows to the observance of
his Rule. It was pronounced by Pope S. Gre-
gory the Great, to be distinguished for its wis-
dom, and the richness of its language ; and it
soon became the only one known in ihe West,
except the Rule of S. Augustin. That its humble
author contemplated the introduction of no new
mode of life is proved by its closing words :
* See Hospinian, De Or. Mon. vi. f lb.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 29
" We have compiled this Rule," he says, " that
we who observe it in monasteries may show in
some little way that we have honesty of manners,
and the beginning, at least, of a heavenly conver-
sation. But for him who hasteneth to the per-
fection of this conversation, there are the doc-
trines of the holy Fathers, whose observance
would lead a man to the height of perfection.
For what page, or what discourse of divine au-
thority, of the Old or New Testament, is not a
most just Rule of human life? Or what book
of the holy Catholic Fathers does not pro-
claim this, that by a straight course we should
arrive at our Creator. Moreover, not only the
lessons and institutes of the Fathers, and their
lives, but also the Rule of our holy father Basil,
what are they but instruments of virtues to monks
who live well and are obedient ? But to us who
are slothful, and bad livers, and negligent, they
are shame and confusion. Whoever thou art
who hastenest to the heavenly country, perform
this very small Rule, as a beginning, with the help
of Christ ; then at last thou shalt arrive at those
greater things which we have often made men-
tion of above, the loftiest eminences of doctrine,
and of virtues, God protecting thee. Amen."*
* Reg. S. Ben. Hosp. De Oi\ Mon. iv.
30 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
In a few centuries the Rule of S. Benedict had
spread over Europe. Its monasteries were the
seminaries of learning, and often the centre of
flourishing towns and hamlets. They suffered
much in the barbarian ages of European history,
but they were remarkably preserved as places of
refuge for religion, and as the visible represen-
tations among savage nations of that great central
spiritual power, which God was establishing on
the ruins of imperial Rome, at the tomb of the
apostles, for the protection and extension of His
Church. It is confessed that the severity of mo-
nastic discipline was at times relaxed. The ac-
cession of wealth and influence sometimes proved
too much for the virtue of the poor disciples
of S. Benedict, and the fervour of their early
love died away. But ever and anon, great Re-
formers of the institute arose; men who earned
the name, not by pulling down, but by clearing
away ruins, and building on the old foundations,
in the spirit of their beloved master. Such,
among many others, were the founders of the
Cluniac, the Camaldolian, and the Carthusian
Orders : all of them reformers of the relaxed
Rule of S. Benedict. Such, too, was the founder
of the Cistercian Order, whose glory is S. Ber-
nard. Latest and not least of these was De
Ranee, the abbat of La Trappe.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 81
Thus time rolled on, and brought many changes
along with it. As the dominion of the Church
extended, her needs became more various. The
minds of men became more cultivated and ac-
tive ; and heresy again assumed a bold front, as
of old. The masses of the laity had outgrown
the ability of the secular clergy to instruct and
direct them. And the Regulars were more or
less bound by Rule to a life of holy contempla-
tion, and could not leave their prayers, and their
simple labours in the fields, or their learned stu-
dies. A cold and unamiable tone, too, had crept
into the schools of learning, and it seemed as if
the softening influence of Christian charity was
about to cease to be felt in the world at all. It
was in this emergency, that God raised up in
the Church a new order of Fratres — Brethren
or Friars — to carry into the world the devotion
of the cloister, and to recal it to its duty by the
irresistible appeal of charity, as well as to reco-
ver the ground of scholastic learning for the
Church. S. Francis and S. Dominick, were the
men chosen for this great work. To use the
words of the greatest of Christian poets :
" The providence, that governeth the world,
In depth of counsel, by created ken
Unfathomable, to the end that she
Who with loud cries was spoused in precious blood,
32 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Might keep her footing towards her well-beloved
Safe in herself and constant unto Him,
Hath two ordained, who should on either hand
In chief escort her ; one seraphic all
In fervency ; for wisdom upon earth
The other, splendour of cherubic light.
I but of one will tell ; he tells of both,
Who one commendetb, which of them soe'er
Be taken ; for their deeds were to one end." *
The latter found the Rule of S. Augustin suf-
ficient for his purpose, with a few changes and
additions. S. Francis instituted a new Rule, which
was finally approved by the Pope in 1223.*f* His
is the last which was known in our country be-
fore the loss of its religion ; with it, therefore,
I shall close this very brief sketch of monastic
history.
This was the great institution which once co-
vered the face of Scotland with abbeys, and priories,
and houses for holy nuns ; and which sent into our
streets and lanes tender-hearted men and women
to comfort the poor little ones of Christ. Truly it
was an evil deed to destroy it ; and yet it was God's
will, and we must submit. It does no good to
call those by hard names, who for the punishment
of their own sins were made the instruments of
* Dante, Paradise, Carey's Trans, xi. 27.
t Hosp. De Or. Mon. vi.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 33
our chastisement, and of the destruction of our
old monasteries. We should rather leave those
sad events in the hand of God, assured that it
was for ends the wisest that He allowed it. Per-
haps our forefathers did not value enough the
great blessings which were theirs, while the monks
were watching, and praying, and going about
among them. Perhaps the religious themselves
did not remember the high calling which they
professed. But with other people's faults we have
less to do, than in amending our own. One of
our first acts will be to learn to take an interest
in every thing that regards the life of Religion,
which is preserved in the ruins, and the holy
names which still adorn out city. If we begin to
set a value on these, perhaps we shall improve in
other things ; and it may be, in His own good
time, that God will not deem us unworthy to
have again among us bright examples of the hea-
venly life of the cloister. Nay, already He has
favoured us more highly than any other place in
Scotland; for, after nearly three hundred years
it was here that the first religious house was
erected, where He is served by pious nuns, wbo
have vowed to be His for ever in life and in death.
We, then, are more than others bound to esteem
very highly such devotion, and no longer to feel
indifferent to its fruits in ages past.
c
LECTURE II.
»J« Dear Brethren of the Holy Gild; — Some
of you may perhaps think that I have forgotten
all about our own ruined abbeys and convents,
while I have been wandering in the deserts of
Egypt, among the communities of holy recluses,
who peopled their vast solitudes so many hundreds
of years ago, and so very far from our own moun-
tain land. And besides, you may have found it
difficult to imagine their mode of life, never
having visited the scenes of their retirement, nor
associated their names with any thing that you
are familiar with. But it was necessary to say
something about the source of monasticism and
its early development, in order to enter more
fully into the interest of its beautiful remains at
home. Otherwise we should lose much of the
practical instruction which they afford ; we
should admire them, without understanding the
principles which called them into being. This
would be mere childishness in us, who are able
to look at these things as reasonable men, and
not as if we were in search only of picturesque
effect, I hope, too, to show you that our
S6 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Scottish monasteries were much more nearly
connected with S. Antony and his disciples than
you might at first suppose. The rule of life
which they practised, in conformity with the
counsels of evangelical perfection, S. Athanasius
brought with him to Italy, as we have seen, when
his own city of Alexandria, the capital of Egypt,
had rejected him, and driven him into exile, for his
noble defence of the Catholic faith. This hap-
pened about 340, while S. Anthony was still
alive. A few years later, a young man arrived
in Rome, the son of a British prince of Cumber-
land. He had travelled all the way from his
father's stronghold among the mountains in the
north of England, to visit the tomb of S. Peter,
and to learn to be a missioner, that he might go
back and teach his poor benighted countrymen
the religion of the Cross. A saintly Pontiff,
named Damasus, then ruled over the Church ;
the same who commanded S. Jerom, the monk
of Bethlehem, to translate the whole Bible into
the Latin language, which was then the best
known, that it might be more generally used
than it could be in the original Hebrew and
Greek. This translation is called the Vulgate,
and is now more than 1400 years old. S. Dama-
sus greatly encouraged the monastic life, and
Rome was filled with pious nuns and monks
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 37
during his Pontificate. The young Ninian, for
it is the great saint of Candida Casa whom I
am describing, stayed for some years in Rome.
During that time the Pope died. His successor,
Siricius, finding the pious youth, " regularly
trained in the faith and the mysteries of the
truth," as Ven. Bede tells us, ordained him, and
sent him home to Britain with his blessing. On
his way through France, he could not pass near
Tours, without stopping to see S. Martin, who had
lately instituted monks there, after the model of
the Egyptian ascetics. S. Ninian at length ar-
rived in Britain ; and for some reason unknown
to us, he crossed the Solway from Cumberland,
and began his missionary labours among the
Picts, who lived in that part of the country now
called Galloway. God crowned his toil with
great success. He lost no time in imitating all
that he had seen at Rome and at Tours, and he
introduced monks into the country which he was
reclaiming from heathen darkness.* Their abode
was probably at Whitherne or Candida Casa, in
Wigtonshire, where he built a church of stone,
in honour of S. Martin. This place became
very famous, both as an episcopal see, and for
the miraculous signs with which it pleased God
to honour the tomb of the holy bishop. He was
* Marillon, An. Ord. S. Ben. i. 8.3.
38 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
taken to receive his reward in 43*2. His name
still meets us in every part of Scotland, both
north and south, in churches and holy wells, and
in the traditions of the country. In Edin-
burgh, as you remember, there was a chapel
near the site of the Register Office, dedicated in
honour of him, of unknown antiquity, and the
church of the Holy Trinity is placed under his
invocation, in union with that of the Blessed
Mother of God. Thus you see that our first
Scottish monks were not very far removed from
the ascetics of Egypt. A few links are sufficient
to unite them. For at the time of S. Ninian's
visit to Rome, their life was the great type of
monasticism ; the world had then seen no other.
As yet S. Benedict and the later Religious had
not arisen.
Hardly less direct was the connection between
the far-famed monastery of Hy or Iona and the
family of S. Antony, though they are separated by
more than two centuries. And again the bond of
union is Rome. A modern Protestant traveller
cannot repress the exclamation, " She is of all
nations, and of all times, that wonderful Church
of Rome." * The monastic rule which prevailed
in Ireland during the fifth century was brought
from Italy by S. Patrick, who, as some historians
* Eothen, xi.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 39
credibly inform us, was the son of S. Martin's sister.
About the time that S. Ninian's life of labour was
closing, his began. He converted the Irish people
to the Christian faith by thousands, and filled the
country with monks and virgins consecrated to
God. From one of the religious houses which
he founded there went forth, in the middle of the
following age, the famous abbat, S. Columba,
who, after instituting many monasteries in his
native country, passed over, in 565, to the little
island of I, since called Iona or Hyona, by cor-
ruption from Ithon, which means the Isle or
Waves. He brought with him twelve disciples,
to aid him in his plans for the illumination of
the rude people in the north of Scotland They
lived together under a strict rule; and, besides
giving a great part of their time to mental and
bodily labour, they were able to devote much
leisure to the study of Holy Scripture, and
to the task of making copies of it. When he
had firmly established his young institution, he
began to go about as a missioner among the
neighbouring people, planting monasteries, and
carrying Christianity and civilization whitherso-
ever he w^ent. His name, too, will live for ever
in Scotland. It is found at this day on the
shores of our western Islands, in the Orkney,
and in our own Firth of Forth. It is his name
40 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
which is given to the island of Inchcolme, or the
Isle of Columba, where a monastery was built in
his honour, in 11*23, by Alexander I., one of S.
Margaret's sons.
I am unwilling to detain you with this rapid
sketch of the introduction of monasticism into
our own land longer than is absolutely necessary
to give a distinct view of it ; and yet I cannot
pass unnoticed a remarkable feature in the con-
stitution of our earliest monasteries, which has
given rise to much wearisome and foolish discus-
sion. It is certain that in Iona, the superior of
the monastery w7as the abbat, and that he, at
first, had only the rank of a priest ; while there
lived under his civil jurisdiction a bishop, for the
performance of the functions proper to his high
office, as for instance, confirmation and ordina-
tion. Hence it has been argued, that the disciples
of S. Columba must have been presbyterians.
Others again, not unfavourable to episcopacy,
have maintained that, at least, their history shows
them to have been free from the superstitions of
the Church of Rome. You will hear one or
other of these assertions made whenever they are
mentioned ; endlessly, perseveringly repeated, in
the face of the most elaborate refutation. It is
enough for us to notice that some distinction
was made between the spiritual functions of the
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 41
abbat and of the bishop, which is of itself good
proof that they recognised in the bishop an ec-
clesiastical power higher than the priest's, though,
as superior of the monastery, the abbat's civil
jurisdiction was supreme. And as for those who
claim affinity with the monks of lona and their
successors, in their supposed freedom from Roman
Catholic superstition, let us hear the observation
of the protestant bishop Gillan on this head : —
" I have shown," he says, " that they were
for episcopacy ; that they believed in purgatory ;
and that souls were delivered out of it before the
day of judgment, by the prayers and fastings
of the living, and especially by masses ; that they
practised private confession; that they had no
less regard and veneration for reliques than the
Romanists have now ; and that the reliques of
the apostles were sought for from all places, and
altars built in honour of them, and they believed
that miracles were done by themf that they con-
secrated churches, and for this end used holy
water, by which they thought also diseases were
cured ; churches were dedicated to the honour of
the Blessed Virgin and Apostles; they used holy oil,
by which they believed the sea and roaring of the
winds were calmed ; they observed Lent, and all
the Wednesdays and Fridays most religiously ;
they erected crosses, and used the transient sign
4*2 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
of the Cross. To these may be added that they
had monasteries, consecrated abbesses, and gave
all reverence and respect to monks ; they bowed
their knees when they entered the church ; they
followed unwritten traditions ; they had a great
regard for a bishop's blessing ; their clergy wore
a distinguishing garb ; and they performed divine
worship by a liturgy. I could prove all these
things by plain testimonies, were it necessary.
If then, the Scots complied with the Romanists
in what our presbyterians call Popish errors,
(and, no doubt, some of them are such), and
no instance can be produced wherein they differ-
ed from them, except some ecclesiastical rites
and customs, — is it not reasonable to conclude
that they professed the same faith, and believed
the same doctrine as the Church of Rome ? And
if it was so in the time when they had different
communion, it must have been no less so after
the year 716, when the Scots laid aside those
rituals which had occasioned the difference, and
became one and the same communion with the
Church of Rome."*
The successors of the monks of Iona were, in
a later age, called Culdees or Keledei, which
means Servants of God. They are found in all
* Quoted with approbation, by Dr Russel, in his edition of
Keith's Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, p. lxxxii.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 43
the Celtic nations under a similar name. Their
communities were distinguished by the residence
of a bishop, under the government of an abbat ;
and thus they were the centers of episcopal
jurisdiction long before the division of country
into dioceses and parishes.
We have already traced to the monastery of
Iona the mission of S. Aidan, and the conversion
of the kingdom of Northumbria. He also founded
the abbey of Old Mailros, on the banks of the
Tweed. About the same time, colonies were
sent from Iona to Coldingham, Tyningham, and
Aberdeen. After three hundred years from the
coming of S. Coiumba, his parent house, in the
Western Ocean, was visited by the savage Vi-
kingr, or pirate kings of Norway and Denmark,
and laid in ruins.
In the middle of the same ninth age, Kenneth
Macalpin, having obtained the united sovereignty
of the Picts and Scots, founded a religious house
at Dunkeld, in honour of S, Coiumba, under a
rule of lifelike that of Iona. It was inhabited by
Culdees, and among them was a bishop who
at one time was the primate of Scotland. In the
same century, a Culdee monastery was established
at S. Andrews. In the following age, Kenneth
III. founded a similar house at Brechin. Be-
sides these, the Culdees had monasteries at Aher-
44 LF.CTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
nethy, Dunblane, Mortlach, Monyrnusk, Loch-
leven, Dunfermline, Portmoak, Scone, and
Kirkcaldy. They were gradually supplanted in
succeeding ages, by the new Orders of Religious
which were introduced into Scotland, and finally
got possession of their houses. And in the 14th
century the last trace of them in history is found.
Thus you see that Iona, which was the cradle
of Scottish monasticism for many centuries, de-
rived its rules from Italy by way of Ireland,
and they were not materially different from those
which came to Italy with S. Athanasius from
Egypt. So that we shall not be far wrong in
calling S. Antony, and the other holy fathers of
the desert, the parents of our early Religious in-
stitute. In a former series of readings, we took
notice of the superiority to the natural ties of
kindred and of country which distinguishes
saints. We observed many of them wandering
about the world, leaving their homes, and going
among strangers, whithersoever God sent them,
for the good of others, and the zeal of his glory
which consumed them. Here we cannot but re-
flect on the no less wonderful influence of their
sanctity on persons and nations far distant from
their times and their earthly abode. " Their
sound has gone forth into all the world, and*
their words unto the end of the world." Saints
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 4~)
who lived 1500 years ago, and whose first step
towards greatness and an imperishable name was
the renouncement of all that is commonly thought
to lead to these objects of human ambition, and
to the attainment of influence among men, have
filled the whole world with their fame, and have
left behind them an example which thousands
upon thousands have since followed in every age
and generation. Treading in their hallowed foot-
steps, these disciples of theirs, in their calm re-
treats, have swayed the destinies of kingdoms,
and only ceased to be accounted great, when they
forgot the lessons of their masters. And, least of
all indeed, but still in a way that is remarkable,
here are we, a few poor Christians in a remote
corner of the Church, reaping pleasure, and I
hope profit too, from the contemplation even of
the ruins of a system which the unworldly, far-
seeing intelligence of saints called into existence,
or at least brought into a mature and visible form.
Thus, turn we whither we will, it is ever the same
gracious tone which is sounded by a thousand
harmonious voices. t; The meek shall inherit the
land, and shall delight in abundance of peace."
" It was well these monks should tread
Between the living and the dead,
On the line by which they are severed ;
46 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
That they in their fasts and festal mirth
A blessing and grace should merit
For the far off races of the earth,
From the close-lying world of spirit.
Yes — it was well that they should be
Types of the meek and passion free,
The humble of earth, that in cloistered room
Fight the world's battles in secret gloom ;
And lands are saved and conquests won,
And the race of high and hard truths run,
And chains snapped off and sins undone :
i^id all by meek, dejected men,
Earth finds not, learns not how or when.
For they are too divinely great
For fame to sully them with state,
And pageant little worth :
From out the unpolluted dead
Their names may not be gathered.
They dwell too deep for man to find
Them out in their calm mirth,
Too high to leave a name behind,
To be played with on the earth. "*
You have not forgotten the state of Edinburgh,
at the time when the gentle spirit of S. Mar-
garet bid farewell to this world, on the top of
the castle rock. The fortress served the purposes
of a royal residence, and of a military defence ;
and the town which then lay around it was small
and straggling. Three centuries and a half
later in its history, it was contained within a
* Faber, The Mourner's Dream.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 47
space reaching no farther than from the castle to
the Netherbow, and not so broad as the present
High Street and its tributary closes. " At that
time," says an old record, " the regions of Scot-
land was woody ; and a great forest, then called
Drumselch, lay near the town of Edinburgh,
on the south side, in which was abundance of
wild animals — to wit, stags, fallowdeer, goats,
foxes, wild boars, and beasts of chase, of the same
kind." This was the primitive state of things
in the early part of the twelfth century.
The body of S. Margaret and her husband
had now been lying for thirty-five years beneath
the pavement in the church of Dunfermline,
" opposite the altar and the venerable image of
the Holy Rood, which she had erected there."
Her spirit had doubtless, in those years, been
pleading in heaven for the distracted country
which she had left behind. A usurper had, for
a time, filled the throne of Malcolm Can more,
and three of his sons had, in succession, ascended
it, and had been removed by death. The last of
these, Alexander L, had remembered the love of
his mother for the honour of God's house, and
had liberally enriched the church of Dunfermline,
where his parents lay buried. He had also made
laroe snfts to the church of S. Andrews. The
Religious Orders of the fifth and sixth centuries
48 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
had now obtained a renown far and wide,
throughout the church, and several reforms of
relaxed Rules were daily growing in importance,
and were spreading from one country of Europe
to another. Alexander had brought some Canons
Regular of S. Augustin from England, where
they had been introduced about the year 1105,
and had established a house for them at Scone.
He had also endowed other colonies of the same
order at S. Andrews, on Inchtay, and on Inch-
col me, in the Firth of Forth.
David, the youngest son of Malcolm and the
holy queen Margaret, now sat on the Scottish
throne, to which the death of his brother had
called him, in 1124, from the court of his sister,
queen Matilda and her husband, Henry I. of
England. He was a munificent benefactor of the
church, so as to make James VI. call him "a
sair saint for the croon."
In regard to the religious houses which he
founded in Teviotdale, — and the observation, per-
haps, applies to others, — it is remarked by Sir
Walter Scott, that " it seems probable that
David, who was a wise as well as a pious monarch,
was not moved solely by religious motives to those
great acts of munificence to the church, but
annexed political views to his pious generosity
Since the comparatively fertile valley of Teviot-
f
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 49
dale was likely to become the frontier of his king-
dom, it is probable he wished to secure at least
a part of these valuable possessions, by placing
them in the hands of the monks, whose property
was for a long time respected, even amidst the
ra^e of a frontier war. In this manner alone
had the king some chance of ensuring protection
and security to the cultivators of the soil; and,
in fact, for several ages, the possessions of these
abbeys were each a sort of Goshen, enjoying the
calm light of peace and immunity, while the rest of
the country, occupied by wild clans and maraud-
ing barons, was one dark scene of confusion,
blood, and unremitted outrage."*
As yet, in Edinburgh, the church in the castle,
and of S. Cuthbert, lying just under it, were
the only places whence prayer and sacrifice pub-
licly ascended. But the intercession of S.
Margaret could not fail to succeed, sooner or
later ; just as we are quite sure that it will again
prevail, in winning for her fallen country the
grace of conversion to its ancient faith.
" In the year of the Lord's incarnation, 1128,
it happened that David, king of Scots, visited his
Maydyn castle, near Edinburgh, in the fourth year
of his reign." I quote from the same old record
which was just now cited. " On the day of the
* Monastery, i.
50 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Exaltation of the Holy Cross, after the solemnities
of mass, there stand, in the presence of the king's
majesty, many noble lords, and officers of the
royal palace, and great men in the very flower of
their age, and full of spirit, entreating that, on a
day of such pleasant weather, the king's majesty
would visit the plains, and would be pleased to
enjoy the sport of hunting. At that time there
was with the king his secretary and confes-
sor, a religious man, unequalled for his sanc-
tity of life, his virtues and knowledge, by name
Alwin, a Canon Regular of S. Augustin's mon-
astery of Meritone, near London, who also had,
for a long time past, served the king, when the
same king David was earl of Huntington and
Northumberland, and lord of Cumberland. He,
contrary to the advice of the young lords, advised
the king, firmly maintaining that the king's ma-
jesty, on a day of such devotion and solemnity of
the Holy Cross, ought not to roam about the
plains and enjoy the pastime of hunting.
" Nevertheless," as the old tale continues,
w the nobles pressing the king, and urging the
suitableness of the time, and the pleasure of the
chase, he at length yielded to their desire, and,
having taken some refreshment, mounted his
horse, and proceeded eastwards, through the
valley which is now the Canongate, between
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 51
two little hills, [namely, the Calton and Arthur's
seat,] to the place where he might best see the
coursing of the game with dogs. The hunters,
meanwhile, penetrate into the forest with their
dogs, by their loud barking, and by the skill of
the beaters, to turn out of their hiding-places the
wild animals. Presently, the noise and din of
those who are in search rise on high ; the forest
resounds, and the whole air is filled with a kind
of rude melody. But the king, not far from the
rock called Salisbere, towards the north, under
the shade of a leafy tree, awaits the chase in
silence; while his nobles, after the manner of
hunters, are scattered up and down with their
dogs, and are hidden from the sight of the wild
beasts. And lo! in a moment the king beheld,
at the foot of the said rock, close to a fountain
of wonderful clearness, a stag, with branching
tines, coming swiftly towards him ; and the king's
horse, frightened by the noise which it made, and
by its terrible appearance, fled, against the king's
will, a little w7ay northwards, to the place where
now the church of the Holy Rood stands so glori-
ously. The stag, with great violence, throws the
king and his horse to the ground, wounding the
king grievously in the thigh. Bat the king, in self-
defence, trying to lay hold of the tine of the
stag with his hand, by chance, between the tines,
52 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
laid hold of a cross, which was easily pulled out,
and remained in the king's hand. The stag
running back whither it had come, fled with very
great swiftness, and at the foresaid fountain,
among the brakes, disappeared from the eye of
the king, wherefore the said fount is called the
Fountain of the Crucifix.*
" The king's horse flying about alone, the
nobles flock from all sides to the king ; and im-
mediately his confessor, Alwin, attempts to raise
him up. There is the greatest astonishment,
and a great tumult of people : each one inquires
about what had happened, and the nobles very
much wonder at the king, prostrate and wounded,
with the cross in his hand. Alwin consoles him,
saying, " O king, live for ever, thou art deserved-
ly punished ; the cross, which to-day thou hast
dishonoured by hunting, thou hast by divine pro-
vidence found to adore; a fortunate hunter art
thou to-day proved to be ; adore the cross. The
king commands all to adore the cross ; and on
* Nisbet, Heraldry, ii. 4, p. 334, adds, that one of king
David's attendants, Sir Gregan Crawford, killed the stag, and
that its head, with a cross between the horns, became the badge
of the abbey church, and an armorial distinction of his family,
which carries argent (white), a stag's head erased (torn), with
a cross crosslet between his attires, gules (red). This crest is
still borne by Sir George Gregan Crawford of Kilbirnie, in
Stirlingshire. See Burke's Heraldic Dictionary.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 53
bended knees he ceases not to adore it, with
tears kissing it.
" After all had adored the cross, the king is
raised] by his servants, and placed in his saddle.
Alvvin, his confessor, is desired to carry the cross
before the king, and so in a kind of procession
they enter the Maydyn castle. The king's
wounds being carefully tended by medical art,
he is placed in bed ; and lo ! on the night follow-
ing, while he is sleeping, a voice sounded in the
royal ear, repeating thrice, " David," and saying,
"build a house of devout Canons of the Cross."
By which vision, the king being quite awakened,
as was his custom, he begins to praise God, and
the said words, as of an angel commanding him,
he thoroughly comprehending, committed to his
memory. In the morning he distinctly revealed
to his confessor, Alwin, the order and the result
of the vision. He is filled with joy, and both
pour forth prayer to God most devoutly. After
a little time, the king being quite healed, calls
together the officers of his secret council, to
whom proposing his plan, he broke forth in
these words : " I have founded some sacred
places in honour of Almighty God, of His glo-
rious Virgin Mother, and of His saints; and by
God's operation, and my assistance, it is fit
that they be finished and perfected. But now,
54 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
being endowed with a wonderful cross, divinely
sent to me, and, moreover, admonished by com-
mand of an angelic vision, I am constrained to
build a house in honour of the Holy Cross;
which the more miraculously and holily it is
enjoined to be built, so much the more excel-
lently ought it to be adorned, and to shine with
royal splendour.
" All applaud the king's purpose, glorifying
God, who had chosen to fill the throne a prince
of so great devotion and justice, to beautify the
Church of God, and to govern His people. And
because at that time, in the kingdom of Scot-
land, for planning and executing a work of so
great excellence, there seemed to the king's
majesty a lack of ingenious workmen, he sent his
ambassadors into France, who returning, brought
with them twenty stone-cutters, most skilled in
ingenious mechanical contrivance and arts, and
well experienced, according to whose plan, models
having been showu to the king, he was well
pleased.
"Therefore, in the year 1128, the holy and
most devout king David, with consent of his
most beloved son, Prince Henry, and with the
approval of the council of the nobles of his whole
kingdom, in the same place where the cross just
mentioned was brought to him by the stag, began,
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 55
in honour of the Holy Cross, to found a royal
monastery of Canons Regular, of the order of S.
Augustin, Doctor, giving it the name of Domus
Sanctas Crucis — to wit, in Scottish, Halyrud-
hous; causing his confessor, Alwin, as a holy man,
religious, industrious, and distinguished by every
virtue, to be advanced as abbat of his most re-
nowned monastery. Which venerable monas-
tery of sacred foundation being beautifully
finished, the most illustrious king David, in
presence of the nobles and great lords of his
whole kingdom, for a rich gift, granted and offered
the foresaid cross to God in his said monastery,
to the Canons Religious about to serve God and
the blessed Cross for ever in the same place ; and
gave churches, lands, tenements, possessions,
royal and precious ornaments, and by royal
letters for ever confirmed them.*
I have read to you the whole of the legend of
the Holy Rood, not because I think that it en-
tirely possesses the dignity or the credibility of
authentic and well attested history, but partly for
the sake of the lively picture of the state of Edin-
burgh, and the manners of the time which it gives
us, and partly because I am inclined to believe,
with some whose opinion is of weight, that in
many important details it may be in the main
* Bannatyne Miscellany, ii. 13-17.
56 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
correct. Local tradition, in very many instances
a safe guide, and often endowed with the cer-
tainty of natural instinct, still preserves the re-
collection and the name of the spot where the
wild animal rushed upon the king. The Rood
Well, as it is called, is familiar to the ecclesias-
tical antiquary ; situated about 300 yards to
the south-east of the abbey of Holy Rood, at the
foot of the Salisbury Crags, just as the legend
describes it. It has been cleared out, and made
more conspicuous during the recent improvements
in the Queen's Park. And I need hardly remind
you how frequently the figure of a stag's head,
with the cross between its horns, meets the eye
in the Canongate. It even surmounts the pro-
testant church ; and it is sculptured on the old
Catholic market-cross, now standing against the
wall of the Tolbooth, of which we shall hear
more by and bye. Till lately, this tale was sup-
posed to be a very modern invention, because the
historian, Boecius, passed it over in silence ; but
the researches of an eminent living antiquary,
the editor of the Bannatyne Club Miscellany,
have proved that it is at least five hundred years
old, and perhaps still more ancient; for he found
it in a MS. service-book which belonged to the
abbey of Holy Rood, and which he thinks, from
its character, was written in the thirteenth or four-
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 57
teentb century. And it is most likely that it
existed long before it was put in writing. Another
learned antiquary, indeed, conjectures that the
book is not older than the captivity of King
James I. of Scotland, very early in the fifteenth
century; and he tells us that, before the reign of
that monarch, the seals of the monastery bear no
trace of the stag with the cross between its horns,
which ever afterwards distinguished them, in
allusion to the supposed origin of the abbey of
Holy Rood. Yet, even according to his opinion,
the legend of the miraculous stag is nearly four
centuries and a half old. But I do not wish to
take up your time with questions of this kind.
While we justly demand the most positive and
unerring certainty for every fact which makes up
the sum of faith, or on which any practice de-
pends which involves a doctrine of faith, as, for
instance, the admission of particular saints into
glory before their invocation can be sanctioned
by the Supreme Head of the Church, Catholics
do not share with their separated brethren their
unfounded mistrust and even hatred of the pious
and edifying narratives commonly called legends,
from their being often publicly read in monasteries
during refection, and at other times. Their autho-
rity is certainly lower than that which belongs to
grave history ; and yet, as poetical statements of
58 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
fact, or instructive allegories founded on it, they
may convey lessons of wisdom even to the learned,
much more to the young and the ignorant, pro-
vided always that they contain nothing inconsis-
tent with the general analogy of faith, or the known
events of history. And who shall say that they
are worthy of no credit ? We have more confi-
dence in our faithful predecessors then to suppose
that they would, without some good and wise
reason, put such a story as I have just read to you
into their service-books. We do not sit in judg-
ment upon them, as if we were superior to them,
but wre accept what has come down to us from
them with reverence at least, even when it is
now impossible to say why they wrote it, on what
evidence, or for whom. To use again the able
pleading of Mr Newman, in his essay on Eccle-
siastical Miracles, " all that can be said is, that
the facts are not notorious to us ; certainly not ;
but those who wrote did so for contemporaries,
not for the eighteenth or nineteenth century, not
for modern notions and theories, for distant
countries, for a degenerate people, and a disunited
Church. They did not foresee that evidence
would become a science, that doubt would be
thought a merit, and disbelief a privilege; that it
would be in favour and condescension to them if
they were credited, and in charity that they were
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 59
accounted honest. They did not feel that man
was so self-sufficient and so happy in his pros-
pects for the future, that he might reasonably sit
at home, closing his ears to all reports of divine
interposition, till they were actually brought be-
fore his eyes, and faith was superseded by sense ;
they did not so disparage the Spouse of Christ, as
to imagine that she could be accounted by profess-
ing Christians a school of error, a workshop of
fraud and imposition. They wrote with the
confidence that they were Christians, and
that those to whom they transmitted the gospel
would not call them ministers of Antichrist."*
The standing miracle of the endurance of a
Christian communion, at once so ancient and
so young, so wide-spreading and so united, so
often assailed and yet so invincible, as the
Catholic Church, and still more the ever-present
miracle of the Blessed Eucharist, may well make
the report of any less stupendous instance of mi-
raculous interposition in the Church antecedently,
or at first sight, probable. Still its acceptance
or rejection must depend on its own evidence.
When that is insufficient to ensure certainty, we
are not asked to believe, but we are surely re-
quired to doubt with modesty, and to suspect ig-
norance in ourselves rather than dishonesty in
* Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles, § 4.
60 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
our spiritual fathers. And let me add, that this
temper of mind is far removed from the easy
credulity which accepts every idle and impro-
bable tale without examination, as capricious
inclination leads it. Instances of this mischievous
facility are unhappily not rare among the very
persons who most busily and loudly accuse Ca-
tholics of being its dupes. Our belief, when it is
given to a fact, or a narrative of events, is the
result of evidence strong and unquestionable.
But when we cannot accept it with perfect assu-
rance, as a historic truth, and especially if it has
come down to us, arrayed in the venerable garb
of antiquity, we can afford to welcome it for other
good and beautiful qualities which it may have,
and for the possible amount of truth which it
may contain. The use of allegory, as a vehicle
of instruction, has no less authority than the
example of our Divine Lord Himself.
You are not, then, asked to believe every part
of this miraculous story. Far from it: I do not
believe it all myself; that is to say, I have found
no evidence, and perhaps none ever existed, to
make me as sure that king David drew forth a
cross from the horns of the stag as that he was
once king of Scotland, or that he founded Holy
Rood abbey. But it is not necessary, on that ac-
count, to reject the story altogether. It is by no
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 61
means improbable that the hunting on Holy Cross
day took place at the foot of the Salisbury rock,
and that the king narrowly escaped with his life
from the attack of a furious stag, and, in grati-
tude to God, founded a monastery in His service
on the very spot. Nay, more than this, many
reports far more wonderful, and even unlikely,
than the appearance of the cross, claim our reve-
rent belief as Catholics, because they have been
attested to us on authority which we cannot rea-
sonably call in question. Some of their credibi-
lity then is, as it were, reflected upon it; and
because we believe them, we dare not pronounce
it an impossible, inconceivable, or even an impro-
bable occurrence ; far less can we turn it into
ridicule, or affect a lofty tone of pity for those
who could inscribe it in their books of devotion.
They probably had better reasons for what they
did than we can now even hope to know, for they
have not told them to us ; and, therefore, out of
mere respect to them, our judgment regarding
this event, and every other of the same kind, must
remain suspended, till some new light can be
thrown upon it from other sources.
But whether this was the real origin of the
abbey of Holy Rood, or whether, as historians
say, it owed its foundation to that precious
fragment of the Lord's Cross, which S. Mar-
62 LECTURES, ETC.
garet, as you remember, brought with her from
England, which she held in her hands in her
agony, and in whose honour, as S. Aelred
informs us, her son David endowed an abbey
under the invocation of the Holy Cross, or
Holy Rood — for the words are synonimous — it is
very certain that, in the secluded valley which lies
between the Calton Hill, Arthur's Seat, and the
Salisbury Crags, there stood for more than four
hundred years a noble monastery, the home of
Augustinian Canons Regular, who represented
to the inhabitants of Edwinsburgh, and the May-
dyn castle, the perfect type of evangelical life ;
praying in their church at fixed hours of the day,
and through a great part of the night, while their
neighbours were sleeping around them ; living
on poor fare, and doing the bidding of their Su-
perior, and exciting the devotion of others by
their calm, recollected demeanour, and their
holy charity. Very scanty notices of them, such
as would interest us, have been preserved in his-
tory ; but there are a few things connected with
their mode of life, recorded by their chroniclers,
which I hope to offer to you at our next
reading.
LECTURE III.
►J< Dear Brethren of the Holy Gild; —
Leaving now the flowery path of legendary story,
which, though probably leading us to truth, is
little suited to the earnest, practical temper of our
age and country, let us follow the straighter
course of history. David I. having for some
cause made a vow to found a monastery in honour
of the Holy Cross, it is believed, with good rea-
son, that the first house of Canons Regular,
whom he brought from S. Andrews to fill it, was
in the castle. In 1128, the abbey of Holy Rood
was begun, on the site where it so long adorned
our city. Father Hay, a canon of S. Genevieve
in Paris, has described it thus : — " The royal
and most magnificent monastery of Holy Rood,
near the walls of Edinbrugh, which David, the
third son of Malcolm, built in the year 1128,
both in the fitness of the place and the splendour
of the work, and the abundance of the revenues,
and the suitableness of other things, if it does not
64 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
surpass the first churches and monasteries of
Europe, at least easily equals them. It is situat-
ed in a low marshy plain, and, owing to the ob-
struction of the neighbouring hill, is less open to
the bracing wind, and on that account less
healthy ; so that holy men seem long ago to have
sought from their institute the strength which
they had to acquire, but which had to be perfect-
ed in infirmity.', When it was finished, it was
named, Of the Holy Rood, or Holy Cross, near
Edinburgh. Sometimes, too, it was called the
Abbey of L'Islebourg, or Of Edinburgh, and by
Fordun, a Scottish historian, Sanctae Crucis de
Crag, or Of the Holy Cross of the Crag, from the
rocks which lie close to it.
The first record of it which we have is the ori-
ginal charter granted to it by king David, dated
between the years 1143 and 1147, when we may
suppose that the French stone-cutters had raised
a beautiful and spacious building, and the Canons
had taken possession of it, and had begun to
exercise their holy rule. I will here only allude
to another interesting story, which is found in the
same service-book, whence the legend of the stag
is taken. It relates an accident which befel one
of the chief carpenters; how he fell from the
roof, and was taken up for dead; but by the
prayers of the king, and during the celebration
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 65
of mass in honour of the Holy Cross, he was re-
stored, and, in gratitude, spent the remainder of
his life as a servant of the Cross, and finally rest-
ed in peace among the brethren of the house.
But to return to king David's charter.
A charter, as you know, is a writing by which
land and all feudal rights and possessions are be-
stowed by one person on another. In the middle
ages pious kings and rich men granted many of
these to churches and religious houses, for inten-
tions which are now often misrepresented ; as if
they thought to purchase the pardon of their sins
by munificence to the clergy, without contrition
and amendment. But in reality their motive is
founded on the words of our Lord Himself, as we
have already seen that the idea of the religious
life also depended on the same sure authority.
w Make unto you friends of the mammon of ini-
quity"— these are His own words — " that when
you shall fail, they may receive you into everlast-
ing dwellings."* It is related that when Cor-
dova, in Spain, was occupied by the Saracens,
during the reign of Alphonso III., " the Maho-
medan king was one day reposing in a beauteous
field, sweet with roses and trees of various kinds,
and one of his soldiers said to him, { O how beau-
tiful, sweet, and delightful would be this world
* S. Luke, xvi. 19.
E
66 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
if men were not to die.' This reflection, " con-
tinues the author of Mores Catholici, " threw
light upon the intentions of Christians in ages of
faith, when they endowed monasteries so abun-
dantly ; for one of the chief motives which ac-
tuated them in doing so — which, indeed, was
never separated from any other inducement —
was the desire to secure for themselves a perma-
nent possession, and a durable felicity."* We
have already seen enough to convince us of the
truth of this in our visit to the collegiate church
of the Holy Trinity. Collections of the charters
belonging to religious houses are called cartu-
laries, and many of them have been drawn from
obscurity and given to the world in the last few
years by antiquarian book-clubs. The charters
of Holy Rood abbey have been collected and
published for the Bannatyne Club; and to that
book, as well as to a very learned and inte-
resting paper by the editor, I am indebted for
much of the information which I am able to give
you regarding the abbey.
The charter of king David begins in these
words : — " In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and in honour of the Holy Rood and of S. Marie
the Virgin, and of all Saints, I, David, by the
grace of God, king of Scots, by royal authority,
* Mores Catholici, x. 19.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 67
with the assent of my son Henry, and of the
bishops of my kingdom, with the confirmation
and attestation of the earls also and barons, the
clergy also and the people acquiescing, by divine
suggestion, grant all the things underwritten to
the church of the Holy Rood of Edwinsburgh,
and confirm them in perpetual peace." An enu-
meration of the possessions which he bestows on
it, and on the Canons Regular serving God in it,
here follows. These are principally the church
of the Castle, with all that belonged to it ; the
church and parish of S. Cuthbert, with its rights
and possessions, and the land on which it stood,
together with that lying under the castle, reach-
ing to the eastern part of the castle rock, from
the well at the corner of the royal garden, along
the path leading to the church of S. Cuthbert.
The chapels also of Crostorfin and Libenune,
which belong to the same church, are included
in the grant ; also the tithes of Legbernard ; the
church of Hereth, or Airth, in Stirlingshire, with
land in its neighbourhood. The royal charter
also enumerates the village of Broctune (Brough-
ton) and Inverlet (Leith), with its harbour, and
half of its fishings, and with a tithe of those be-
longing to the church of S. Cuthbert; also cer-
tain dues in other places, as in Pert, Striveline
(Stirling), Reinfry (Renfrew), and Berwic ; ten
68 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
pounds in the year from the royal exchequer
for lighting and repairing the church ; the right
of cutting wood for it and other buildings, in the
royal forests of Strivelinshire and Clackmannan!;;
half of the royal dues on hides and tallow in Ed-
winesburg; the tithe of all whales and sea mon-
sters falling to the king between the Avin and
Colbrandespade on the east coast; and the half
of the royal revenues in Kentyr and Errogeil on
the west; with the skins of all rams, sheep, and
lambs belonging to the castle of Linlitcu, which
should die naturally ; certain quantities of malt,
meal, and brushwood from Libertune ; dues from
the mills of Dene and Libertune, the new mill
of Edwinesburg and Craggenemarf.
" Also I grant to the foresaid Canons," thus
the charter continues, " to build * a burgh, be-
tween the same church and my burgh. And
I give permission that their burgesses may have
the common right of selling and of buying in
my market, the things which they have for
sale, freely and without molestation and custom,
in the same manner as my own burgesses. And
* Herbergare — domum'construere, to Ducange; a barbarous
Latin word, which some translater of the charter into English
understood to be the name of the burgh. His error was copied
by Maitland, and from him by almost every later writer on the
subject, except Arnot.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 69
I forbid any one, in their burgh, to take by
force, or without the leave of the burgesses, bread
or ale, or cloth, or any thing for sale." On this
clause depends, as we shall presently see, the
immunities still belonging to the ancient burgh
of the Canongate.
" I also grant to the Canons to be free from all
toll, and from every custom in all my burghs,
and throughout my wrhole kingdom, to wit, in
all things which they can buy or sell. And I
forbid any one to take a poind on the land of the
Holy Rood, unless the abbat of the place shall
refuse to do right and justice. I will, moreover,
that all the things foresaid they enjoy as freely
and peaceably as I possess my own lands. And
I will that the abbat have his court, as freely, and
fully, and honourably as the bishop of S. Andrews,
and the abbat of Dunfermline, and the abbat
of Kelcu, (Kelso) have their courts." The
writing closes with the names of the witnesses.
Such was the munificence, and the style of royal
grants, in those old Christian times.
The charter of king David was confirmed by
Robert, bishop of S. Andrews. Succeeding
kings, bishops, and nobles enriched the abbey
with gifts of lands and tithes, which were ratified
by many bulls of the Supreme Pontiff. The
abbey possessed estates in Galloway, and several
70 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
churches which before belonged to Iona. Its
chief possessions were nearer home ; in the Carse
of Falkirk, in Preston, Bolton, and Tranent, in
East Lothian ; and the whole territory of Hamer,
more lately called Whitekirk, from a church
dedicated in honour of our Blessed Ladye, once
celebrated for miracles and pilgrimages. The
burgh of the Canongate, and the baronies of
Broughton, Inverleith, Sauchton, and Sauchton-
hall also belonged to the abbey, together with
large estates in Merchiston, Liberton, and Craig-
millar.* But, at its dissolution, its revenues
amounted to no more than £2926, 8s. 6d. of
money, and 116 chalders of victual; an instance
not rare of the easy rate at which the lands of
monasteries were let to tenants. A cell, depen-
dent on Holy Rood, called the Priory of Saint
Marie de Trayll, was founded at S. Marie's Isle,
in Galloway, by Fergus, the penitent lord.
Other cells, at Blantyrein Clydesdale; at Rowa-
dill, in the Isle of Harris; at Crusay and Oronsay,
in the Western Islands, were inhabited by Regu-
lar Canons brought from Holy Rood.
It is much to be regretted that no description
or view of the old monastery has come down to
us, to help us in forming a conception of its
size and arrangement. But, judging from the
* Charters of Holy Rood, pp. 38, 41.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. /I
order of similar houses, which has been more
fortunately preserved, we are still able to imagine
the picture of the abbey of Holy Rood, as the
eye of a traveller beheld it in the thirteenth or
fourteenth century. There were, probably, se-
veral courts opening into each other, as we see
in other monasteries. There must have been the
Library, where the rare and precious books of the
time were hoarded up with scrupulous care ; and
the Scriptorium, or writing-place, where they
were multiplied by the toilsome labour of manual
copying. Then the abbey must have had its
Refectory, where the Canons took their meals;
and the Dormitory, where they slept ; and the
Chapterhouse, where they assembled daily, to
transact the business of the house, and for other
purposes, not strictly belonging to the divine
worship, as, for example, the public confession of
faults, the reading of the Rule and the Mar-
tyrology. There was the Guesthouse, where
they lodged the stranger ; and the Cloisters, where
they read and meditated, perhaps surrounding
the cemetery where their departed brethren
rested; and the Gatehouse, where the poor were
fed. We know more about the church than any
other part ; and, as we elsewhere remarked, it
has longest withstood the decay of ages. For,
while hardly a trace of the rest of the monastery
72 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
remains, a large fragment of it is yet visible.
" The august temple," says Father Hay, " was
divided into three parts; the Sanctuary, to which
they ascended by steps, and, in the middle of it,
was the holy table. The Choir, devoted to the
clergy, adjoining to which was the pulpit, from
which the Epistles and Gospels used to be re-
cited ; the Narthex, or Nave, in which the place
of prayer for the people was marked out. An
ornamented door in the midst separated the choir
from the nave. The people, apart from the
clergy, beheld the divine mysteries through the
grating. The larger doors enclosed the temple,
which they had bound with iron clamps, and plates
of brass, for the greater beauty and ornament,
and the safer custody and security of the church.
The vestibule was supported on pillars, and
divided into lesser chapels. The nave was
pierced by a staircase, and there was one behind
the greater altar. In the Narthex was a wheel,
or crown, most elegantly made of brass, which
hung suspended by a strong chain ; lighted waxen
tapers were fixed in it on the principal festivals.
A tree stood before the altar, constructed with
wonderful skill of the artificer, of brass, and not
more conspicuous for the lights which it bore,
than for its jewels. There, it was believed, was
the place in the forest where king David, while
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 73
he was hotly pursuing a flying stag, took hold of
an image of the Cross with his hands, as the
Martyrology of the place narrates. Some think
that the# name was given from a cross brought
from England, as Boethius says, ' About that
time there came from England to Edgar many
vessels wrought with great skill, partly silver and
partly gold. Some holy reliques, also, among
which is that most precious black cross, which
king David afterwards gave to the monastery
which he erected at his own cost in Lothian,
whence it bears the name of Holy Rood.' " *
The names of only a few of the altars in the
church are known to us. These are the Great
Altar ; of S. Marie ; of the Holy Cross ; of S.
Andrew; of S. Stephen; of S. Katharine; and
the parish altar. The taylors of Edwinesburgh
had another of their own, under the invocation
of S. Anne, the mother of our Blessed Ladye;
and the altar of S. Crispin was endowed by
the cordwainers. *f- The Bannatyne Miscel-
lany, to which we have already been indebted
for the legend of the Holy Cross, con tains J an
" Inventory of all the jewels, vestments, and
ornaments of the great altar and vestibule of the
monastery of Holy Rood, existing and remain-
* Charters of Holy Rood, preface, p. xvi.
t Caledonia, ii. 755. J Bann. Misc. ii. 22.
74 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
ing," October 12, 1483. To those whom the
author of Symbolism describes, when he says
that, in the Catholic worship of the Mass, they
" understand nothing else but that the priest
turns sometimes to the right, sometimes to the
left, and is clothed in a motley-coloured gar-
ment," it may seem foolish to spend a thought
on such things. But to us, who are taught their
true value, there is a mournful interest in reading
even a bare catalogue of them. They call up
vividly before us the departed solemnities of the
holy ritual, the order and majesty of the divine
worship, and the love of it which prompted the
devout to make offerings of their treasures for its
reverent celebration. And as the most trivial
act of service done to our Blessed Lord, while
His mortal Body was on earth, such as washing
His feet, or anointing Him for His burial, is
memorable, not for its own sake, but for His
whom the weak and humble desired to honour by
it, so every tribute of love and veneration paid to
His glorified Body in the adorable Eucharist,
small though it be in itself, and of little worth, is,
in reality, very precious, and well deserves to be
kept in everlasting remembrance. For those vest-
ments, of which only an inventory now remains,
were worn by consecrated men while they made,
and handled, and offered up the Body and Blood
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 75
of the Lord in the sacrifice of Propitiation. The
jewelled vessels, which have long since fallen a
prey to sacrilegious covetousness, contained that
Allholy One, as He reposed day and night in the
stillness of the abbey church, or they were borne
along with Him as He passed in procession, shed-
ding benediction on the kneeling crowd. They
were themselves blessed, and set apart for holy
uses, by pontifical hands and with sacred rites. In
the office for the consecration of a new paten and
chalice, the pontiff prays that, by the grace of the
Holy Spirit, they may be made a new sepulchre
of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And such in fact they were, by no figure of
speech, but as really and truly as was the cave in
the garden of Joseph, with this only difference,
that it received His lifeless Body, while in them
It was living, glorious, immortal, though veiled
under the lowly appearances which natural rea-
son cannot estimate, but which faith adores.
We find mention made of thirteen changes —
mutatoria — of vestments for mass ; among these,
one of cloth of gold ; one of blue satin, embroi-
dered with gold ; one of cloth of gold of a red
colour ; another of the same material of a white
colour; one change of yellow damask; one of
black : and one of green; besides veils and frontals
for the altars. Of copes we count more than
76 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
thirty ; one of gold tissue, with the stag and
holy cross embroidered in the hood. We read
of a new cross of pure gold, set with thirty pre-
cious stones, containing the wood of the Lord's
Cross; also of an old cross of silver, enclosing
another portion of the sacred Tree. There was
another great cross of silver, with a foot weighing
180 oz. ; one of the same metal, " for the Sacra-
ment," with a silver chain ; and a cross of crystal.
There were three copies of the Holy Gospels —
textus — bound in silver gilt; one in crystal; and
one in ivory. On the altar of S. Katharine
there stood an ivory tabernacle, and a silver re-
liquary, made by Sir John Crunzanne, formerly
vicar of Ure, and containing a bone of the saint.
A reliquary of silver, shaped like an arm, with
two rings, weighing 84 oz., enclosed a relic of S.
Augustin. There were twelve chalices belonging
to various altars; one of purest gold, with a paten,
weighing 46 oz. Of altar candlesticks of silver
there were two ancient ones, and four new ones,
weighing one stone and four lbs.; besides two smaller
ones in the abbat's chapel ; and two of brass, and
two of iron, for ferias. We are told of " a great
Eukaristiale of silver gilt," 160 oz. in weight,
with two bells set with ^precious stones ; and of a
great vessel — cuppa — of silver for the sacrament.
There were also two silver thuribles, with silver
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 77
vessel — acerra — for incense; a silver stoup, gilt,
with a sprinkler, for blessed water ; two cruets of
silver gilt, belonging to the great altar; two for
the altar of the Holy Cross, and two for S. Ka-
tharine's; and to the altar of S. Andrew, the
Patron of Scotland, belonged " an ymage of the
Blessed Virgin, of ivory, with silver foot," a glass
phial of the oil of S. Andrew, two silver cruets,
and a text of the Holy Gospel bound in silver.
The Inventory closes with the following entry :
" First, to wit, to the honour of the Blessed
Virgin Marie, one great suit — reparamentum —
viz., a stande, to wit, a cope with a chasuble, and
two tunicles, with three albs, three amices, and
their appendages — paramentis — of precious cloth
of gold of a white colour ; and twenty copes of
damask, of the same colour, with the orphreys of
cloth of gold, of a blue colour, and some orphreys
of black velvet; which suit, or stande, the abbat
intended to remain for ever in the vestiary of
the said monastery among its jewels and vest-
ments.
" Also, at the same time, the same abbat set apart
— deliberavit — for ornamenting the great altar
four curtains of a very precious stuff — cortinas
de duplice tartara — of a blue colour, formed and
perfected, with their appendages and other ne-
cessaries." There was also in the church a font
78 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
of solid brass, which seems to have been used for
the christening of children of the royal family.
It was carried off during the war with England
in 1544, by Sir Richard Lea, and given to the
abbey church of S. Alban's.*
From these scanty notices of the material part
of the monastery, and the ornaments of its
church, let us turn to view the men who lived in
it, those Canons of S. Austin's rule who have
given their name to the old street that leads to
where it stood, and to the mills which they pos-
sessed on the banks of the Water of Leith, still
called Canonmills. And again we must travel
far from our own country, if we would know the
history of their institution. For its origin is
seven hundred years older than S. David's time,
in a town not otherwise remarkable, on the
northern coast of Africa. The name of S. Au-
gustin, bishop of Hippo and doctor of the Church,
is one which no Catholic can pronounce without
reverence. Even among the separated it com-
mands respect and admiration. His eventful life
I need not describe to you, believing that it
must be more or less familiar to all. With his
name must ever be associated his mother's, S.
Monica ; that saintly woman, who, for eighteen
years, followed him with her tears and prayers
* Weever, Funeral Monuments, 5G9.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 79
through every turn of his wandering; and who
just lived to see him given back to her, in his
second birth by grace. As she herself said to
him, not many days before her happy departure,
it was the only desire that made her wish to re-
main on earth, to see her son a Catholic. Long
and painfully she toiled and prayed for it ; and
having gained what she asked from God, she
begged, like old Simeon, to be dismissed in peace.
But in gaining the conversion of her son, she,
under God, secured for the church a rich trea-
sure. He became one of the most gifted de-
fenders of the Faith ; his great intellect bore
down irresistibly the learning and skill of many
successive assailants. In the language of the
Church, at Matins, on his festival, "he performed
great deeds before God, and all the earth is filled
with his teaching." As a master of the spiritual
life, too, and especially for penitents, he is pre-
eminent. Who does not know and love his
Confessions^ and owe to them many wholesome
and consoling lessons ? And we are now to
regard him as the founder of a Religious Order.
See how God's power is made perfect in infirmity,
when human weakness acts in concert with His
eternal plans, though never so faintly and hope-
lessly, as it seems. S. Monica, a lonely widow,
without learning, and living a hard and sorrow-
80 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
ful life in the world, has gained for the Church
of God one of her noblest doctors, and through
him one of her oldest and most dignified Orders.
Let us never forget, when we think of the Au-
gustinian Canons who lived at Holy Rood, and
of their great founder, that they were the fruits
of the tears and intercessions of an afflicted,
broken-hearted woman, It is ever in sorrow
and seeming infirmity that God's work in the
order of grace is carried on. It was in an hour
of woe and darkness, unparalleled in the world's
history, that the Redeemer cried aloud, It is con-
summated. And for this reason the Church
teaches us, on the festival of S. Monica, to invoke
Him as " the comforter of mourners, and the
strength of those who trust in Him." And in
the office of Apostles, the great models of all who
accomplish, through grace, the holy will of God,
she sings, " Going they went and wept, casting
their seeds; but coming they shall come with
joyfulness, carrying their sheaves."
If we except the infant church of Jerusalem,
while the Apostles remained together, there is no
instance of the clergy living in community, in
the first three centuries of Christianity. Their
numbers were too few, and their field of la-
bour too immense, to allow of their being col-
lected in this way. The first example of it is
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 81
found in the middle of the fourth age, when S.
Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, in Italy, gathered
his clergy into one house, under rules like
the monks. But the institution of ecclesias-
tical communities, distinct from the monastic,
which, as you remember, were at first entirely
laic, is due to S. Augustin. His order of Canons
holds a place between the secular clergy and the
monastic Orders, though it is included in the
class called Regular, and with reason. For, in
addition to the life of purity proper to all who
serve the Christian altar, he added the conditions
of living in common, and of renouncing private
property ; and these were part of the monastic
Rule. But inasmuch as it enjoined many duties
and restrictions which he omitted, his Canons are
distinguished from monks.
Abcut two years after his conversion, in 387,
and the decease of his mother, which happened
in the same year, S. Augustin returned from
Italy to Africa. He desired to live for God
alone; and so he retired to his own house near
Tagaste, his native town, where he founded a
small society of brethren, living in common under
a Rule of poverty, and celibacy, and mortifica-
tion. One of their chief duties was the care
of the poor ; and they chaunted the praises of God
n their little oratory, night and day. This was
S'2 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
the beginning of the Austin Friars, or Eremites of
S. Augustin, an Order which afterwards grew very
famous. S. Augustin also instituted communities
of religious women, under the same rule. His
sister was the Superior of one of these near Hippo.
The saint passed two years in this way, till
in 391, he had occasion to visit Hippo. The peo-
ple were in want of more clergy, and one day, as
the bishop Valerius was addressing them on the
subject, they with one consent took S. Augus-
tin, almost by force, and besought Valerius to
make him a priest. He was persuaded to yield
to their wishes, and the bishop ordained him.
He obtained leave to bring with him to Hippo
the same holy institute which he had begun at
Tagaste. His own patrimony he had by this
time entirely given up, and he brought with him
nothing but the clothes which he wore. At
Christmas, 395, he was consecrated a bishop, as
coadjutor to Valerius. In the following year, on
the death of Valerius, he became sole bishop of
Hippo. From this event is dated the institution
of the Canons Regular. He found that it would
be impossible to exercise the hospitality which
became his pontifical office, without deranging
the regularity of his little community. And yet
lie wished still to live by rule, in imitation of the
primitive times, while the footsteps of the Lord
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 83
and His apostles on earth were yet fresh. He,
therefore, went to live in the bishop's house, and
instead of the society of the Eremites, who had
hitherto been with him, he collected the clergy
of the church of Hippo into a community, and
enjoined on them a Rule nearly the same as he
had originated at Tagaste. No one had any-
thing of his own ; all was in common. He did
not at first oblige all the clergy to join him, but
afterwards he would ordain no one who did not
bind himself to live under his Rule, and if any
one grew weary of it, he dismissed him from his
diocess, as one who had fallen from his holy
vocation. All his clergy, as well as himself, were
poor, living on the charity of the faithful who
came to the church. The candidates for admis-
sion into his community put their private pro-
perty into the common fund, or otherwise dis-
posed of it. But those who came with nothing
were made equally welcome. All that they had
was shared with the poor. Their food was
usually vegetables ; meat and delicacies were re-
served for their guests, and for the sick. Their
manner of life was simple and unostentatious,
neither allowing softness and luxury, nor affecting
extreme severity. And yet they were very strict
too; for S. Augustin would not allow even his
own sister to enter the house. He seems to have
84 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
drawn up no formal rule for them, as the later
founders of Religious Orders did. The life and
example of the Apostles he adopted as his Rule,
together with some general regulations which were
found among his writings.*
The institute spread throughout the church,
under the fostering care of the bishops ; and the
clergy who lived under it received the name of
Canons, because they were enrolled in the Canon
or Catalogue of names in their house.f After the
lapse of several centuries, its first purity and fer-
vour decayed. It was in France that the earliest
effort was made to restore them. In 742, a
great bishop, named S. Chrodegand, was placed
in the see of Metz. He set himself to reform
the relaxed discipline in his diocess, and oblig-
ed his clergy to live in common, in obedience
to a Rule which he drew up for them. Hence he
is generally called the restorer, and sometimes
the founder of the Regular Canons. His Rule is
* Serram. 355, 356, De vita et mor. cler. Opera, Ed. Ben.
torn. v. p. 1379. — Ep. 211. Ad. Sanctimoniales, ib. torn. ii.
p. 781 — Regula ad servos Dei, ib. torn. i. p. 790. The last
contains the rules for nuns, merely adapted to the use of men.
f " By the name of Canons," says Helyot, Hist, des Ord.
Mon. ii. 2, " the Greeks designated ecclesiastics, monks, re-
ligious virgins ; in a word, any who were inscribed in the Canon
or Catalogue of the community."
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 85
very celebrated.* It was adopted, not only by
his own clergy, but by many churches and
dioceses in Italy, Germany, and France. It is
compiled from the holy Canons, the writings of
the fathers, and chiefly from the Rule of S.
Benedict.
The Canons of S. Chrodegand lived in common
in a cloister like the monks ; and that the clergy
might be free from all anxiety about secular
affairs, they were provided with the means of
subsistence. They were not bound absolutely to
renounce private property, but, on entering the
community, they made a solemn gift of all their
goods to the church, reserving to themselves the
use of them during life, and the right of dispos-
ing of their moveables, and of the offerings which
they received for masses and other spiritual func-
tions. They had liberty to leave enclosure
during the daytime, but as night came on, they
were obliged to repair to the church to sing
complin, after which it was unlawful to eat, or
drink, or speak, but perfect silence reigned
in the house till prime on the following morn-
ing. They slept in dormitories, each in his
own bed, and were bound to rise at two o'clock
in the morning, to the nocturnal office, like the
the Benedictine monks. Between matins and
* See Dacherii Spicilegium, i. 205-267.
8G LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
lauds there was an interval, varying according
to the season of the year, for lands were begun
at day-break. They were not allowed to spend
it in sleep, but in learning the psalter by heart,
in reading or singing. After prime they met
in chapter, to hear part of their Rule read, or
some instructive book. The Superior then gave
his orders for the day to each, and reproof and
penance if necessary ; and, on leaving the chapter,
each one went about his prescribed labour.
As to food, from Easter till Pentecost, they
made two meals every day, and they might eat
meat, except on Friday. From Pentecost to S.
John's day, (midsummer) they made two meals
also, but they abstained from meat. From S.
John's to S. Martin's day they might use animal
food, except on Wednesday and Friday. They
fasted till noon every day, from S. Martin's till
Christmas. After Christmas they fasted three
times in the week, till Lent, unless a festival
happened on one of their fasting-days, when the
Superior might dispense from abstinence. During
Lent they fasted till vespers, and were forbidden
to take their meals out of the enclosure. They
were arranged in the refectory, according to
their ecclesiastical order. Their food and drink
were restricted in quantity, and each of the Canons
cooked for the rest in turn, except some of the
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 87
officers of the house who were otherwise engaged.
Their clothing, too, was regulated by S. Chrode-
gand, with constant regard to simplicity and the
mortification of pride.
The Emperor Charlemagne, in the 9th cen-
tury, had much at heart the reformation of the
Canons. He proposed this Rule to them, and the
Council of Mayence, in 813, enjoined its obser-
vance. The Emperor Louis Debonnaire em-
ployed much care in regulating clerical discip-
line; and, at his desire, Amalarius, the deacon of
Metz, otherwise very famous as a ritualist, com-
posed a Rule, which was approved by the Council
of Aix-la-Chapelle in 816. It was nearly the same
as S. Chrodegand's. But there seems to have
been among the Canons a constant inclination to
avoid the restrictions of Rule, and to live as secu-
lar clergy. Hence, frequent reforms were neces-
sary in those cathedral and collegiate churches
whose clergy desired to preserve their original
rule of poverty, and a life in common. In the
the 11th century, S. Peter Damian besought
Pope Nicolas II. to remedy the disorders which
had crept into the communities of the Canons
Regular, and to forbid them to possess property.
The holy pontiff assembled a council at Rome,
in 1059, at which a hundred and thirteen
bishops were present ; and, among other regula-
8S LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
tions which it made, it ordained that the clergy in
cathedral and collegiate churches should live to-
gether in common, and that what they received
from their church should be put into a common
fund. It exhorted them to imitate the life of the
Apostles, and to renounce private possessions.
The same injunctions were reiterated by the Ro-
man Council under Alexander II. in 1063.
This change was based on the authority of S.
Augustin, and his two sermons, On the Life and
Manners of Clerks, were taken as the rule which
the Canons ought to follow, in imitation of the com-
munity at Hippo. Many reforms and new congre-
gations presently arose, which made up the Ordei
of Regular Canons of S. Augustin, though their
internal government was wholly independent of
each other. In this also they differed from the
strictly monastic orders. In cathedral churches
the bishop was the head of the community, and
sometimes the active duties of the superior were
performed by the Prior, as at S. Andrews.
Sometimes he was called Praepositus, or Provost,
and more rarely Abbat. The ordinary histories of
the Augustinian Canons usually enumerate three
Rules, which are said to belong to the holy Bishop
of Hippo. But they are all compilations from
his writings, and other sources.
From this revival of primitive discipline among
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 89
the Regular Canons is dated their renewed in-
fluence and celebrity. They were brought over
to England, not long after the Norman Conquest,
and their first house in Scotland was at Scone,
where Alexander I. established them in 1114,
as we have seen. From Scone they spread to
many other places, and among the rest to S.
Andrews, whence king David brought them to
Holy Rood.
Their dress consisted of a white cassock, over
which they wore an alb, reaching down to the
feet, and more recently a rochet, coming down
only to the knees; and on their shoulders an
almutium, or amess, which served originally
as a covering for the head, and was made of
lambs' wool. The same material has always
continued to be a distinguishing badge of this
Order of Religious. Over all they wore a black
cloak, which enveloped their whole body : and
hence they are often called Black Canons. At
the dissolution of the monasteries, there were
a hundred and seventy-five houses of this Order
in England, and about thirty in Scotland. The
Rule of S. Augustin was also observed with
more or less modification by other Religious
Orders; as, for instance, the Praemonstratenses;
the Mathurine, or Red Friars, for the redemp-
tion of captives ; the Dominicans, or Black
90 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Friars ; the Lazarites ; the Canons of S. Antony ;
and the great military Orders of the Hospital
and the Temple.
You can now form some notion of the kind of
life that was practised in the abbey. You can
fancy the old fathers in their white cassocks, and
rochets, and long black cloaks, moving about its
courts, or taking recreation on the hill above
it. Along their dim cloisters you can imagine
them passing to the church, at the hour of matins,
while the moon was high in the heavens, and the
town of Edwinesburgh, and their own Canon-
gate, were lying in deep slumber beneath the cold
clear sky of a December night. It is strange to
us to think of the abbey bell sounding among
the crags at that still, solemn hour. Perhaps it
reached the ear of some sick watcher, or of one
kneeling by the couch of the departing, and it
pleased him to think of the prayer and hymn of
the religious, ascending to God for all who needed
succour. Can you pour tray to yourselves the
scene within the church? A few dim lights just
serve to aid the religious in chaunting the office,
and reveal their forms as they stand or kneel in
the stalls, shrouded in their sable habits. Some
of them are venerable grey-haired men, who per-
haps, as the earliest incident of their childhood,
remember seeing S. Margaret, and can recal her
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 91
gentle voice, as they beard her comforting some
victim of sorrow. Some of them are of noble
birth, and have even borne the bishop's pastoral
staff; but they have left the world, and have come
to the abbey to learn to die. And many of them
are young men, who now fill the lowest seats in
the choir, but by and bye they will succeed to the
offices in the house, when the old fathers are laid
in the cemetery. The sick brethren in the infir-
mary are excused from rising ; but, from long
habit, they are lying awake, and the sounds of
choral psalmody are borne to them, along the
passage that adjoins the church. Outside the
choir, in the far-stretching vaulted aisles, and
among the clustered pillars, all is gloom, save
where the moonbeam is streaming through one
of the southern windows, full on the brass effigy
of an abbat long since dead. The living and
the departed are brought together in the house
of prayer; no one is absent or amissing. After
the lapse of years the brethren are carried in
succession from their seats in the choir to the
cemetery, or they are laid beneath the pavement
of the church. But they are still remembered
with tenderness ; their names, and often their fea-
tures, are transferred to the monumental brass,
or more imperishable stone, to keep their memory
fresh, rather to make them seem present when
92 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
the offices of the church call the religious to its
hallowed enclosure.
And now the nocturnal office is ended, and the
hooded men move into the cloister, to read and
meditate till lauds. Again they repair to the
church, and entone the office which ushers in the
day. After prime they wend their way to the
chapter- ho use, to hear their Rule read to them,
and the obits of deceased brethren and benefac-
tors, to receive the abbat's orders, and to do
public penance for faults. The Chapter Mass
follows, and at the appointed hour, which is
usually after terce, the High Mass. The cele-
bration of the adorable sacrifice of the Eucharist
is the great event of their day; every other act of
their life circulates around it. After sext, they
go to refection, and while they repair their wasted
bodies, the reading of some pious book instructs
their minds and prevents idle discourse. Then
the poor bedesmen beset the gate, asking daily
to be fed for the love of God. Then, after mid-
day, the church again echoes with the chaunt of
none. The sun is now declining towards the
west, and the Canons once more revisit it to sing
vespers ; and again, late in the evening, after
collation, to join in the solemn office of complin,
breathing the spirit of celestial peace. In silence
they depart to rest, the day is finished, they will
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 93
sleep soundly in the dormitory till the early bell
rings again for matins.
It was thus that the mark of the Cross was set
upon time, as well as on their sacred buildings,
and on every thing that they used, by the men of
Catholic ages, in whom the thought of the eternal
world was ever the guide of their actions in this.
For these seven hours of prayer were so devised
and ordered, as to recal daily the chief events in
the life and passion of our Blessed Redeemer.
At the office of Matins, in the dead of night, the
Church bid her sons remember those long moun-
tain vigils of her Lord, which He spent in prayer
and ineffable communion with His Father. It
was at this time of the night, too, that he was born,
and that He was taken and mocked by the Jews.
At this hour He spoiled the grave, for He rose
before the dawn of day. And there was once a
very widely spread opinion in the Church that
He will return to judgment at this hour of silence,
when death seems to rule over the world of life.
The office of Lauds is usually counted as the
sequence of Matins.
At Prime, which is intended to be recited at
six o'clock, or the first hour of the morning, ac-
cording to a former method of calculation, the
early visits of our Lord to the temple are remem-
bered ; also His being led before Pilate, and His
94 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
appearance to S. Mary Magdalene, and the other
women, on the day of His resurrection.
At the third hour, or nine o'clock, when the
office of Terce is sung, Christ was crucified by
the tongues of the Jews, as the Golden Legend
expresses it ; He was scourged at a pillar by
Pilate. At this hour, too, the Holy Spirit de-
scended on the Apostles.
At the hour of Sext, or twelve o'clock, He was
nailed to the Cross, and the sun hid his face from
the awful sight, while nature veiled herself in a
garment of mourning.
At the ninth hour of the day, or three o'clock,
the office of None is said. It was then that our
Lord bowed His divine head in death, and gave
up His soul to His Father; and, finally, went up
visibly into Heaven, while He blessed His disci-
ples. At this hour they were accustomed often
to assemble for prayer.
As the sober light of evening is stealing over
o DO
the earth, the Vesper hymn ascends from the
church. On the eve of His passion, our Lord
washed the feet of His Apostles, and instituted
the wonderful sacrament of His Body and Blood.
At the evening hour He was taken down from
the Cross, and laid in the tomb, and He showed
Himself to two of His disciples on their way to
Emmaus, in the guise of a pilgrim.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 9$
At Complin, or the end of the day, He endured
the agony in the garden, which wrung from Him
great drops of blood ; He rested in the tomb, and
Pie appeared among His sorrowing friends, and
said to them, I'eace be to you.
A careful perusal of these offices will show how
admirably they are each of them adapted to the
time set apart for their recital. For they are
still in daily use among the clergy and the reli-
gious Orders.
How gloriously must the Church, whose picture
is preserved by Father Hay, have shone at the
first Mass on Christmas night.* Through the
dim vista of acres we can image to ourselves the
brass-bound gates of " the august temple, " as he
calls it, thrown back to admit the train that enters
to celebrate the Advent of the little Babe of
Bethelehem. First comes the cross, one of those
which the inventory describes, and the silver
thuribles and the candlesticks; then the children,
and the lay brethren, and servants of the house;
after them the reverend Canons, two and two,
slowly moving to their places on either side
of the choir, as they enter it from the nave.
* This lecture was read to the Holy Gild the day before
Christmas Eve. Hence the ceremonies of the Midnight Mass
of the Nativity offered the readiest illustration of the appear-
ance of the abbey church, on an occasion of festal joy.
96 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Last of all, the lord abbat, in his pontifical
attire, with his mitre and pastoral staff, closes the
procession. The crown of waxen tapers, that
hangs in the nave, is lighted up, and fills the
church with its brightness. The beauteous tree
of brass before the altar is radiant with lights and
jewels. In the vestments of damask and cloth
of gold, the abbat and his ministers sing the Mass
of this blessed night, and the richest vessels of
the church, you may believe, are brought forth to
do honour to its joyous commemoration. The
Holy Gospel is sung from one of those richly
bound and gold-covered texts, the costliest that
the house possesses. The solemn old tones of
the chaunt alone, amidst the light and the splen-
dour, remind the heart that the joy of such times is
still the joy of pilgrims, who are not yet where
they would be. Their office is through the ear
to calm and attemper the buoyant expression
which on every side exhilarates the eye. They
breathe in every note the air of penitence, and
hope yet unfulfilled, and thirst for justice unap-
peased, from which they took their being.
These are no idle pictures of fancy. They are
only a simple narrative of what really took place,
not only in the abbey of Holy Rood, but in a
hundred other religious houses within the limits
of Scotland. And the routine of the cloistral
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 97
life went on, day after day, and year after year,
and century after century? from the time that
king David built the abbey, till the day that wit-
nessed its demolition. Occasionally there would
come something to vary it, such as the death of
a brother, or of the abbat, or a royal visit. But
in general the life of the Canons was just as I
have described it. " These grim old walls are
an earnest fact," — I quote to you the striking
v>;ords of Mr Carlyle, a protestant writer, in his
interesting book called Past and Present, — "it
was a most real and serious purpose they were
built for. Yes, another world it was, when these
black ruins, white in their new mortar and fresh
chiselling, first saw the sun as walls, long ago.
Guage not with thy dilettante compasses, with
that placid dilettante simper, the heaven's watch-
tower of our fathers, the fallen God's-Houses, —
the Golgotha of true souls departed.
" Their architecture, belfries, land-carucates ?
Yes, — and that is but a small item of the matter.
Does it never give thee pause, this other strange
item of it, that men then had a soul* not by
hearsay alone, and as a figure of speech, but as a
truth that they knew and practically went upon ?
Verily, it was another world then;. ..and this
present poor distressed world might get some
* The italics are the author's.
a
98 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
profit by looking wisely into it, instead of fool-
ishly. But at lowest, O dilettante friend, let us
know always that it ivas a world, and not a void
infinite of grey haze, with fantasms swimming in
it. These old walls, I say, were not peopled with
fantasms, but with men of flesh and blood, made
altogether as we are. Had thou and I then
been, who knows but we ourselves had taken
refuge from an evil time, and fled to dwell here,
and meditate on eternity in such fashion as we
could ? Alas, how like an old osseous frag-
ment, a broken blackened shin-bone of the
old dead ages, this black ruin looks out, not yet
covered by the soil, still indicating what a once
gigantic life lies buried there ! It is dead now,
and dumb; but it was alive once, and spoke.
For fourteen generations here was the earthly
arena where painful living men wrorked out
their life-wrestle, — looked at by earth, by heaven,
and hell. Bells tolled to prayers, and men of
many humours, various thoughts, chaunted ves-
pers, matins; — and round the little islet of their
life rolled forever (as round ours still rolls,
though we are blind and deaf) the illimitable
ocean, tinting all things with its eternal hues,
reflexes, making strange prophetic music ! How
silent now; all departed, clean gone. The
world-dramaturgist has written exeunt. The
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 99
devouring time-demons have made away with it
all, and, in its stead, there is either nothing, or,
what is worse, offensive universal dust-clouds, and
grey eclipse of earth and heaven." *
Not altogether dissimilar, and more Christian,
was the remark of a venerable pontiff of the
Catholic Church in England who visited our city
last autumn. As he entered the ruins of the
abbey church he looked around him and said,
11 Does it not fill the heart of a Catholic with sor-
row to see the mouldering remains of our ancient
churches, and to think that here the adorable sacri-
fice was once offered up, and now all is desolation."
Such was the first house of religion that was
bestowed by divine goodness on Edinburgh. We
have seen enough of it to know that it must have
aided much in advancing the cause of Christi-
anity and civilization among our rude forefathers. "
That which S. Margaret had begun almost single-
handed, was now carried on systematically, and
by rule, by a large community. Thus it often
happens in the history of holy persons. They
lay the first stone, as it were, of a new edifice to
the honour of God, and, before another hand
has added a second, they are removed from their
labours here, and their work seems to die with
* Past and Present, i. 2.
100 LECTURES, ETC.
them. But it is not so. It is only delayed, that
it may go on with greater speed and success. " It
is expedient for you that I go away," was the
assurance of our Divine Lord, when He left His
disciples with the wrorld before them to convert.
And the same is true in a lower degree of all
His saints. Their share in His work is often im-
perfect and productive of little result, till,
from acting themselves, they pass to the higher
office of interceding for others. Then, what they
could only just begin, like S. Margaret's design
for the honour of God's worship, and the tender
care of the poor, grows apace, and brings forth
abundant fruit of glory to God, and of peace to
men. So be it still ; for alas ! the work of
mercy which the Canons of Holy Rood were sent
hither to do has all to be done over again. During
a night of darkness, the beautiful fabric which
they created has, like the fabulous web of Pene-
lope, been taken to pieces and destroyed.
LECTURE IV.
*%* Dear Brethren of the Holy Gild; —
You are now to suppose the abbey of Holy Rood
finished, and the Canons arrived from S. An-
drews, and practising their quiet, devout habits
of life, from day to day, as you have heard them
described. It was natural that Alwin should be
their first abbat, for he was himself a Regular
Canon of a religious house in England, besides
being the king's confessor and spiritual director ;
and if the legend of the stag has any historical
truth, he had a great deal to do with the founda-
tion of the abbey. But his duties seem to have
been too heavy for him, for in 1150 we find that
he resigned his office; and five years afterwards
he departed to our Lord, leaving behind him a
great name for sanctity, so as sometimes even to
be styled a saint. An altar was erected over his
body in the abbey church. King David had died
two years before, in a manner not unlike his holy
mother S. Margaret. His last moments, like
hers, were employed in venerating the Black
102 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Cross of Scotland, which was treasured up in
Holy Rood Abbey. David's name is honoured
as a saint in some local (calendars, and in popular
language, though he was never publicly canonized.
He received from Pope Urban ill. the title of
PrincepsCatholicus,et Christians Fidei ampliator
— Catholic Prince and extender of the Christian
Faith.* The monuments of his piety are thickly
scattered over our country. Besides the abbey
of Edinburgh, he endowed or greatly enriched
the religious houses of Cambuskenneth, Jedburgh,
Dunfermline, Urquhart near Elgin, Kelso,
Melros, Newbotle, Kynloss, and Berwick; not
to mention his less celebrated foundations. " He
may be considered as the salutary reformer of his
country," says Chalmers, " the wise institutor
of the municipal law of North Britain ; he founded
towns, and he enacted the Leges Burgorum. He
may be deemed the munificent founder of her
church, for the improvement of his people, who
were mixed, from various descents, and rude
from ancient habits."f There is much more to
be told of this good king, which would interest
you, but we cannot longer leave the history of
Holy Rood. It is only as its founder that he
claims a place in our present readings.
Alwin was succeeded in the abbacy by Osbert,
* Caledonia, i. 625. f lb.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 103
in 1150; but the new abbat did not live to see
the end of that year. He died in the month of
November. " He left a glorious memory in many
edifices," says Father Hay, " in vestments, and
precious vessels for the service of the church,
among which shone conspicuous an image of the
Mother of God, of silver, and of great weight.
He enclosed the relics in a silver figure. And
full of virtues he passed to our Lord, and was
united to the companies of the saints." Diligently
must this good abbat have employed the short
time that was allowed him, to earn such a name
as this in less than one year. " He was buried
with solemn pomp, before the high altar, where
he had a monumental stone in the pavement."
Abbat William succeeded in 1 152. " When
on account of his weakness," says the same his-
torian of the house, " he was not able for his
burden, he vowed to God to say the whole of the
psalter every day. He encircled the monastery
with a firm and stable wall, against the attacks
of enemies, built with square stones "
In 1 160, the abbey received Fergus the power-
ful lord of Galloway, who came to finish his days
in penitence. He had rebelled against his so-
vereign Malcolm IV., King David's grandson,
surnamed for his purity the Maiden, and had
been defeated ; and after giving his son as a
704 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
hostage for his future conduct, he took the habit
of a Canon in Holy Rood, and enriched the house
with grants of land.
Forty years later, the abbey unfolded its gates
to welcome a bishop, who had resolved to with-
draw from the world. In 1206, John of Whit-
burne, a successor of S. Ninian, resigned his see,
and became a humble religious at Holy Rood.
Our own times are not strangers to similar acts
of humility. Since the present century began,
one of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church
divested himself of his rank, and of all the state
that belonged to it, and ended his days in obscu-
rity, as a novice of the Society of Jesus.
In 1210, Walter, the prior of Iona, was pro-
moted to the abbey of Holy Rood. He governed
the house only four years. Abbat Helias was the
superior from 1227-1253. He "drained off the
water which infested the house," as Father Hay
informs us, 6£ a great work," he adds, " by which
the place was made more healthy ; he also sur-
rounded the cemetery with a wall of brick."
At an early period of its history, the abbey is
found able to receive and entertain the retinue
of kings and princes. It fell a frequent prey to
the rapacity of the English armies in the Border
wars, yet was always speedily repaired. On the
8th July, 1291, abbat Adam did homage to Ed-
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 105
ward I. of England; an act which many were
then forced to do, during the king's progress
through Scotland in that year. It secured pro-
tection and other benefits for the house ; for not
only was he made guardian of the national re-
cords in the following month; but in 1296, when
the abbat and the monastery renewed their ho-
mage, they obtained restitution of their lands,
and of certain corns and cattle of which their
tenants in the Carse had been plundered. At
Holy Rood John Baliol held a parliament in
1205. The abbey suffered much from the vic-
torious army of Edward III. in 1332, as did
Melros and other religious houses which lay in
its way. After the victory of Halidon in the
following year, Edward Baliol assembled here a
council of the disinherited lords, in which they
surrendered the liberties of their country into
the hands of the king of England.
The year 1346 was a disastrous one in the
annals of Holy Rood. David II., son of Robert
Bruce, the deliverer of his country, had invaded
England with an army, and had wasted with fire
and sword a large tract of country in the northern
counties. In his indiscriminate revenge on the
reigning sovereign, who was then absent in
France, he did not spare even the hallowed Pa-
trimony of S. Cuthbert, though supernaturally
106 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
warned, as historians tell us, of the fatal conse-
quences of sacrilege. On the 17th October 1346,
his army was routed in the battle of Durham by
Ralph Neville of Raby, and a powerful force
under his command ; and the king of Scotland,
with many of his nobility, was taken prisoners
and carried to London in triumph. Among the
spoil which fell into the hands of the English,
was the precious Cross, called the Black Rood
of Scotland, which David had brought with him
from Holy Rood abbey, hoping to secure victory
by its presence in his camp. But where justice
is wanting to a cause of war, no aid need be
looked for from methods in themselves the most
pious, or if temporary success attend them, it is
only to make the final disaster all the more signal.
The Cross was borne to the abbey church of S.
Cuthbert at Durham, and offered up at his
shrine. Davies, the author of the Rites and
Monuments of that church, thus describes it: —
"At the east end of the south alley of the
quire, adjoyning to the pillar next S. Cuthbert's
Feretory, next the quire door on the south side,
there was a most fair Rood, or Picture, of our
Saviour, called the Black Rood of Scotland,
with the pictures of S. Marie and S. John, being
brought out of Holy Rood House in Scotland
by King David Bruce, and was won at the
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 107
Battel of Durham, with the picture of our Ladye
on the one side of our Saviour, and the picture
of S. John on the other side. Which Rood and
Pictures were all three very richly wrought in
silver, the which were all smoaked black over,
being large pictures of a yard or five quarters
long, and on every one of their heads a crown of
pure beaten gold, of goldsmith's work, with a
device or wrest to take them off or to put them
on. And, on the back of the said Rood, and
Picture, there was a piece of work that they were
fastened unto, all adorned with fine wainscot- wwk,
and curious painting(well befitting such costly pic-
tures), from the midst of the pillar up to the height
of the vault; which wainscot was all red varnished
over very finely, and all set forth with stars of
lead, every star finely gilt over with gold."*
Twenty-four years after the Battle of Durham,
the remains of King David II. were brought to
* Rites and Monuments of the Church of Durham, p. 31.
It is worth noticing, in passing, that among the treasures of
this church is frequently enumerated a silver cross, called the
Cross of S. Margaret, which was carried in procession on high
festivals. A chronicler of the abbey says, that " it was the
very cross which she had held in her hands in her last moments,
decorated with pearls and precious stones, and had been trans-
mitted to S. Cuthbert after her death, by her express com-
mand." See Raine's Saint Cuthbert, pp. 91 and 121. This
account seems to be irreconcileable with its real history.
108 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Holy Rood from the Maydyn Castle, where he
had ended a long and inglorious reign, and were
buried with the Canons.
In 1381, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster,
found a retreat at Holy Rood, from dangers
which threatened him in England. His grati-
tude saved it from the devastation which, in
1385, attended the expedition of his nephew,
Richard II. when the monasteries of Melros,
Dryburgh, and Newbotle, and the greater part
of the town of Edinburgh, perished in the
flames.* Fifteen years afterwards, when king
Henry IV. had encamped at Leith, in his me-
morable invasion of Scotland in 1400, two of the
Canons were sent to beg him to spare their house.
His reply has been preserved. " Never while I
live," were his words, "shall I cause distress in any
religious house whatever ; and God forbid that
the monastery of Holy Rood, the asylum of my
father when an exile, should suffer aught from
his son ! I am myself a Cumin, and by this side
half a Scot ; and I came here with my army, not
* Tytler expressly assures us(FIist. of Scot. iii. 41) that, at the
intercession of John of Gaunt, Richard spared the monastery
of Holy Rood, though the editor of the Charters of Holy Hood
maintains the contrary. Chalmers, also {Caledonia, ii. 754)
says that Richard burnt the abbey of Holy Rood. Ty tier's
account is supported by Fordun, Scotichron. xiv. 50, note,
Ed. Goodall, ii. 401.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 109
to ravage the land, but to answer the defiance of
certain amongst you who have branded me as a
traitor."* The king was as good as his word.
Robert III. sometimes made Holy Rood abbey
his royal residence, as well as the Maydyn castle.
James I., too, occasionally kept his court here.
James II. was born in the abbey in 1430, and
was crowned in it in 1437. In 1449 it was the
scene of his marriage with the princess Mary of
Gueldres. " On the 18th of June 1449," says
Tytler, " the fleet which bore the bride anchored
in the Forth. It consisted of thirteen large ves-
sels, and had on board a brilliant freight of
French and Burgundian chivalry. The arch-
duke of Austria, the duke of Brittany, and the
lord of Campvere, all of them brothers-in-law
to the king of Scotland, together with the dukes
of Savoy and of Burgundy, and a splendid suite
of knights and barons, accompanied the princess
and her ladies ; whilst a body-guard of three hun-
dred men-at-arms, nobly mounted and clothed,
both man and horse, in complete steel, attended
her from the shore to Holy Rood, where she was
received by her youthful consort. The princess,
a lady of great beauty, and, as it was afterwards
proved, of masculine talent and understanding,
rode, according to the manners of the times, be-
* Tytler's Hist, of Scot., iii. 103.
110 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
hind the Lord Campvere, encircled by the nobles
of France, Burgundy, and Scotland, and wel-
comed by the acclamations of an immense con-
course of spectators From the
moment of the arrival of the princess of Gueldres,
till the solemnization of her marriage and coro-
nation, the time was occupied by feasting, masks,
revelry, and tournaments."* Eleven years passed,
and a train of mourners bore the lifeless body of
the king from Roxburghe Castle, where he bad
met his death, to the cemetery of Holy Rood.
And before the lapse of two years more, the body
of queen Mary was laid under the north aisle of
the church which she had founded in honour of
the Holy Trinity.
Between the years 1459 and 1474 the abbat,
Archibald Crawfurd, was employed as a comis-
sioner in several treaties made with England.
" He built the abbey church, that now stands,
about the year 1460, or thereby," says Father
Hay ; or, as it is more probable, he much en-
larged it. " His arms are to be seen engraven
upon it," he adds, "above a hundred times."
During his abbacy, Holy Rood again witnessed
the festal ceremonies of a royal marriage. In
the year 1469, James III. espoused the princess
Margaret of Denmark, for the payment of whose
* Hist, of Scot. iv. 67.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. Ill
dowry Orkney and Shetland were pledged to the
crown of Scotland, and as they were never re-
deemed, they finally became part of its posses-
sions. In the month of July she arrived at Leith,
attended by a company of Danish nobles, and by
the Scottish ambassadors, who had arranged the
conditions of her espousals. She was only in her
sixteenth year, while the king was still in his
eighteenth. They were married in the church of
Holy Rood ; and the festive mirth which, twenty
years before, had so distinguished the nuptials of
the late king and queen, was again renewed with-
n the venerable walls of the abbey.
The town of Edwinesburgh was now increasing
in importance, and was looked upon as the capi-
tal of the kingdom. It became more frequently
the residence of the sovereigns, though as yet no
palace had been built. James III. usually lived
at Holy Rood abbey, when he came to Edwines-
burgh. His son and successor, James IV. laid
the foundation of a palace separate from the
monastery, and spent large sums of money on
it, from time to time, till his death.
It was during his reign that Dean Robert Bel-
lenden was abbat of Holy Rood for sixteen years.
He was a relation of the archdeacon of Moray of
the same name, who is celebrated for his transla-
tion of the History of Scotland, written in Latin by
112 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Boecius. As to the exact date of his abbacy, we
only know that he held it in 1498. We are told by
Bellenden, the historian, that " he dealt ilka owlke
(week) four bowis (bolls) ofwheit,and fortieshilling
of silver, amang pure houshaldaris, and indigent
pepil; hebrochthame thegret bellis, thegretbrasin
fount, twintie-fowr capis of gold and silk ; he maid
ane chalice of fine gold, ane eucharist, with sindry
chalicis of silver ; he theiket the kirk with leid ; he
biggit ane brig of Leith, ane othir owir Glide; with
mony othir gude workis, qwilkis were owir prolixt
to schaw. He left the abbacy, and deit ane char-
tour monk." This is a picture of one of the last
abbats of Holy Rood, in an age which the ad-
mirers of the Reformation, as it is called, are in
the habit of holding up to the scornful hatred of
the ill-informed, for the universal ignorance and
wickedness of the clergy. Many other portraits
of that time could be produced, no less re-
markably, though silently refuting the unfounded
calumnies of its enemies. They are open to the
examination of all who value authentic facts, rather
than vague and empty declamation. And it is one
serious consequence of the labours of our Anti-
quarian Societies in these years, that ignorance
of the truth of history, hitherto perhaps inevit-
able, is becoming daily less excusable. The
sources of truth are opening upon us in a manner
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 113
which will soon make it impossible to repeat the
old and still popular stories of the misery and
darkness of Catholic ages, and of the spiritual
tyranny and selfishness of the clergy, without a
wilful perversion of the truth, or a fixed deter-
mination to refuse admittance to its light, which
is not less criminal. It is a filial office of affec-
tion in Catholics to labour in removing the dust
of centuries from the documents which are to
make the characters of our fathers appear as
beautiful to this age as they did to their own. But
for protestants it is, to say the least, a hazardous
undertaking, for it undermines the foundations
of a structure which rests upon misrepresenta-
tion and total ignorance of antiquity. If the
beauty and excellence of the ages of faith are
once established and acknowledged, it must be
the beginning of the end for a system of be-
lief and morals which only professed to be
necessary, because they were deemed hateful
and inconsistent with the first principles of Chris-
tianity.
Among the curious relics of our national his
tory, preserved in the castle, and daily visited
by crowds of strangers, there is a beautiful sword,
which many of you have no doubt seen and ad-
mired. Maitland has preserved a minute de-
scription of it, as it was laid up in the crown-room
H
114 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
in 1707 : " It is in length five feet, the handle
and pommel are of silver overgilt, in length fifteen
inches ; the pommel is round, and somewhat flat
on the two sides ; on the middle of each there is,
of embossed work, a garland, and in the centre
there have been two enamelled plates, which
are broken off. The traverse or cross of the
sword being of silver overgilt, is in length seven-
teen inches and a half; its form is like two dol-
phins, the heads joining, and their tails ending
in acorns ; the shell is hanging down towards
the point of the sword, formed like an escalop
flourished, or rather like a green oak-leaf. On the
blade of the sword are indented with gold these
letters, Julius II. P. The scabbard is of crim-
son velvet, covered with silver, gilded and wrought
in philagram work into branches of the oak-tree
leaves and acorns. On the scabbard are placed
four round plates of silver overgilt; two of them
near to the crampet are enamelled blue, and
thereon in golden characters, Julius II. Pon.
Max. N. At the mouth of the scabbard, oppo-
site to the heck, is a large square plate of silver,
enamelled purple, in a cartouche azure (blue),
an oak tree eradicated and fructuated or (gold) ;
and above the cartouche the papal ensign, viz.,
two keys in saltire addossee, (crossed back to
back) their bowls formed like roses or cinque-
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 115
foils, tied with trappings, and tassels hanging
down. At each side of the cartouche, above
the keys, is the papal tire, invironed with three
crowns, with two labels turned up, adorned with
crosses."* The person who shews the regalia
informs every one that this sword was sent to
king James IV. by Pope Julius II.-f* But the
reason of the gift is not mentioned. " In those
days," says the historian Lesley, " pope Julius
II. sent a legate to the king to declare him pro-
tector of the Christian Faith, because he had la-
boured in good earnest to drive away heresy from
his dominions. For a sign of which he sent him
a purple diadem, interwoven with flowers of gold,
and a sword richly gilt in the sheath and handle,
and beautifully starred with gems; and because
these things were monuments of the Church de-
fended, they were presented to the king in the
church of Holy Rood, by the legate and the
abbat of Dunfermline, with a large assembly of
nobility."
* History of Edinb. 163.
t He also adds that the sword and scabbard were the work
of the celebrated goldsmith, Cellini. Bat this is impossible.
For he was born on All Saints' day 1500, and the swore
was sent by the Pope to king James in 1507. For the de-
tection of this error I am indebted to the learned and accom-
plished author of Rome, as it was under Paganism and under the
ropes, who visited Edinburgh last year.
lib' LECTURES ON THE KELI«IOUS
I am not sure that this addition would make
the sword of Pope Julius more popular with
the multitudes who visit it. And yet the prin-
ciple which it represents, namely, that a sove-
reign is bound to protect his people from spi-
ritual as well as from temporal foes, is a living
one in this country. Hence the laws against
blasphemers, as they are called ; that is, persons
who openly insult, by speaking or writing, the
Christian revelation, or rather that part of it
which the people of Scotland have agreed to re-
ceive. It is difficult to see why blasphemy should
be an offence, which the law has power to check,
while heresy, or the wilful choice and dissemina-
tion of a false belief, which is equally dangerous
to Christianity, should go at large. Blackstone,
in his Commentaries, alleges, as a reason for visit-
ing blasphemy with fine and imprisonment, and
even corporal punishment, that " Christianity is
still part of the laws of England." But on what
principle of consistency are Catholic governments
loaded with every abuse for treating the teachers
of what they deem to be false doctrine as enemies
of the state, and dangerous members of society,
by persons who advocate the forcible suppression
of irreverent or impure books and discourses?
Because Elymas the magician sought to turn
away the proconsul, Sergins Paulus, from the
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 117
faith, Saul, otherwise S. Paul, " filled with the
Holy Ghost," as we are informed by the sacred
Scripture, " looking upon him, said, O full of all
guile and of all deceit, child of the devil, enemy
of all justice, thou ceasest not to pervert the
right ways of the Lord." And the apostle spoke
with power, for the magician was punished with
blindness.* In the memorable controversy with
the Donatists in the fifth age, S. Augustin wrote
a letter to Boniface, the governor of Africa, in
which he defends the principles of restraining
heretics. He represents its usefulness in repres-
sing excesses, and reclaiming many doubtful per-
sons. He argues, that if other crimes may be
punished, why may not sacrilege ; and quotes, as
an authority in his favour, the words of our Sa-
viour,— " Go into the highways and hedges, and
compel them to come in."*f* But we should re-
member that restraint is very different from those
cruel acts which in former days deprived of life.
Those resulted from the barbarous manners which
were not then wholly rooted out of society, or
from the worldly policy of the rulers who wore
the sword of temporal justice. Honest students
of history are now willing to acknowledge that
the blame of those disgraceful acts is equally
shared by the disciples of every religion. A hasty
* Actsxiii. t S. Luke, xiv. 23.
118 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
glance at the acts of the Scottish parliaments, since
the change of religion, passed against Catholics
and others who differed from them in faith, is
sufficient to satisfy every candid mind on this
subject. Again, we must beware of confounding
the dangerous sin of those who, born and edu-
cated in light, choose " the darkness rather than
the light, for their works are evil," with the mis-
fortune of so many around us, whose childhood
and youth no ray from the source of truth has
enlightened or warmed. So long as the igno-
rance of these is invincible, the Church, as you
know, never accounts them heretics ; nay, she
even teaches us to regard them as Catholics, if
they have been baptised, and have never formally
or openly renounced the allegiance which they
came under then. They are the objects of her
tenderest sympathy, and of her prayers.
Thirty-four years had now elapsed since the
princess Margaret of Denmark had been married
and crowned in the abbey church. The pageant
of her court, too, bad faded away, and James III.
and his queen were now lying in the abbey of
Cambuskenneth, near Stirling, and the monks there
were praying for the weal of their souls. Again
old Holy Rood is made the scene of rejoicings
as gay and costly as the former, for James IV. of
Scotland is on the eve of his marriage with the
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 119
princess Margaret of England, daughter of
Henry VII. In 1499 it was first agreed on,
and in the next year Henry obtained the Pope's
dispensation for it, as King James and the prin-
cess were related to each other in the fourth
degree of consanguinity. The ceremony of their
betrothal was performed at Richmond in 1502.
Meanwhile preparations were made at Holy
Rood for the approaching event. From various
entries in the treasurer's books we learn that the
building and furnishing of the palace went on
rapidly. Mention is there made of the erection
of the foreyet, a long vaulted gateway, leading
from the court in front of the palace to the Ca-
nongate. It was still standing, though in a
decayed condition, in the middle of last century,
and a sketch of it is preserved in Arnot's His-
tory of Edinburgh, and in the preface to the
Charters of Holy Rood.* A trace of its arches
remains in the wall of the house at the foot of
the Canongate, next to the palace yard, on the
right hand.
A most curious and minute history of the pro-
gress of the princess Margaret, from the English
court at Richmond to Holy Rood, has been pre-
served by John Younge, Somerset herald, who
* Preface, lvii.
120 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
attended her on her journey.* On the 27th of
June, 1503, the king of England removed from
his Manor of Richmond to Coliweston, whence,
" on the eighth day of the Monneth of July fol-
lowyng, he made her to be convayed vary noblely
out of his Realme, toward therighthighand mighty
and right excellent prince Jamys, by the grace of
God, Kyngof Scotys, in following the goodluffe,
fraternall dilleccion, and intelligence of maryage
betwixt him and thesaide Quene. The Holy Ghost,
by His Grace, wyl maynteyn them in long pros-
peritie." The earl of Surrey, the lord treasurer
of England, was entrusted with the principal
charge of escorting the princess to Scotland, a
large and noble train of attendants following her.
They were welcomed with great ceremony in the
towns through which they passed. Through
Grantham, Newark, Doncaster. Pomfret, and
Tadcaster, they rode by easy stages to York,
where they arrived on the 15th of the month.
Two days after they set out again, passing through
Allerton, Hexham, Durham, Newcastle, Mor-
peth, and Alnwick, to Berwick. On the 1st of
* " The Fyancells of Margaret, eldest daughter of king Henry
VII. to James, king of Scotland, together with her depar-
ture from England, journey into Scotland, her reception and
marriage there, and the great feasts held on that account." —
Leland's Collectanea, iv. 258, ed. 1770.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 121
August they left Berwick on their way to Lam-
merton Kirk. Here the princess was received
by the lord archbishop of Glasgow, in the name
of the king; there were also present the arch-
bishop of York, the bishop of Durham, and the
bishop of Moray, and the earls of Surrey and
Northumberland. After the ceremony the prin-
cess went on to Fast Castle, while her attendants
were lodged in the abbey of Coldingham. Her
own train numbered about five hundred, and
more than a thousand persons had come to meet
her. By way of Dunbar and Haddington, she
reached the castle of Dalkeith, then belonging to
the earl of Morton. Her attendants were lodged
at the abbey and castle of Newbottle. On the
4th of August the king arrived privately at
the castle after dinner, and welcomed her to
Scotland. He came from Edinburgh to visit
her on the two following days, and returned
after supper. On the 7th of August she
approached Edinburgh in a gorgeous proces-
sion, borne in a litter, and arrayed in a rich
dress of cloth of gold, with a pursill of black vel-
vet, and a collar of pearls and precious stones.
Thelords spiritual and temporal, knights and gen-
tlemen, who surrounded her, were most of them
dressed in cloaks of crimson velvet. Halfway the
King met her, followed by the archbishop of
12*2 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Glasgow, the bishop of Moray, earl Bothwell,
and other noble and honourable persons. She
was conducted with much pomp to the entrance
of the town.
" Tlier war many honest people of the town,"
says the Somerset herald,* " and of the country
aboute, honnestly arrayed all on horseback, and
so by ordre the king and thequene entred within
the said towne. At the entrynge of that same
cam in processyon the Grey Freres, with the
crosse and sum relicks, the wich was presented
by the warden to the kynge for to kisse, but he
wold not before the quene ; and he had hys hed
barre during the ceremonies. . .
. . " A lityll more fourther cam also in
processyon the Jacobins (Black Friars), revested
the most chyft and principall of them, with many
relicks ; whereof some of those war by the prior
gyffen to kysse, in lyke wyse, whereof the king
did as before.
At the entrvnge of the said towne was maid a
yatte (gate) of wood, painted, with two towrells, and
a windowe in the midds. In the wich towrells was,
at the windowes, revested angells singing joyously
for the comynge of so noble a lady ; and at the
sayd middle windowe was in ]yk wyse an angell
presenting the kees to the quene.
* Leland, ut supra, p. 289.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 123
Within the towne, ny to the said yatt, came
in proeessyon the college of the perysche of Seint
Gilles, rychly revested, with the arme of that
seint, the wiche was presented to the kynge for to
kysse ; whereof he did as before, and they began
to synge Te Deum Laudamus.
" In the mydds of the towne was a crosse.
new painted, and ny to that same a fountaine,
castynge forth of wyn, and ychon drank that
wold.
. . . " Then the noble company passed
out of the said towne, to the church of the Holy
Crosse, out of wich cam the archbishop of Saunt
Andrew, brother to the sayd kynge, his crosse
borne before hym, accompanyed of the reverend
fathers in God, the byschop of Aberdeen, lord
privy seal of Scotland, the byschops of Orkney,
Caithness, Ross, Dunblane, and Dunkeld, and
many abbottes, all in their pontificalls, with the
Religious and Chanoynes richly revested, pre-
ceded by theyr crosse. The sayd archbyschop
then gave the king a relik for to kysse, but he
dyd as he had done before.
" After thys doon, ychon lept off hys horse,
and in fayr order went after the proeessyon to the
church, and in the entrynge of that same, the
kyng and quene light downe, and after he take
the said quene by the body, doynge humble reve-
1*24 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
rence, and led hyr to the grett awter, wlier was a
place ordonned for them to knele upon two
cuschyons of cloth of gold.
But die kynge wold never knell downe furst,
bot both togeder ; and by the said archbyschop
was giffen hym to kysse a rich crosse, whereoff
he did as before, without ofFryuge ; and at the
entryng of the said quere, the chappell of the
said kynge and others begon Te Deum,
After all reverences doon at the church in order
as before, the king transported himself to the pal-
lais, through the clostre, holdynge allways the
quene by the body, and hys hed barre, tyll he had
brought her within her chamber. . . .
. . . " The towne of Edenborough was
in many places hanged with tapissery, the houses
and wyndowes ware full of lordes, ladyes, gentyle-
women, and gentylemen, and in the streytts war
soe grett multitude of people without number,
that it was a fayr thynge to see. The wich peo-
ple ware very glad of the commynge of the sayd
quene. And in the churches of the sayd towne,
bells range for myrthe."
I do not think that there is any where to be
found so minute a picture of ancient Edinburgh,
of the abbey of Holy Rood, and of the ceremo-
nial of its church, as in this curious, and, as we
should say, gossiping narrative. The story of all
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 125
that happened on the royal wedding-day is long,
but some extracts from it will not be uninterest-
ing to you.
" The eighth day of the said monneth," the
herald resumes. " every man appoynted hym-
selfe rychly for the honor of the noble marriage.
Betwyx eight and nine o' the clock, everychon was
rady, nobly apparyld ; and the ladyes abouffe
sayd, came rychly arayd, some in gownys of cloth
of gold, the others of cremsyn velvet and black.
Others of satyn and of tynsell, of damaske and of
chamlet of many colours, hoods, chaynnes and
collers upon ther neckes, accompanyed of their
gentylwomen, arayd honnestly after ther gyse, for
to hold companye to the sayd qwene.
After cam the byschop of Morrey, to fetche
my lords the archbyschop of York and the
byschop of Durham ; the wich war varey honnest-
ly arayd in ther estat, as also the erle of Surrey,
who wras rychely arayed in a long gowne of cloth of
gold, with his rich coller of the gartere, accom-
panyed of many lordes, as the lordes Gra}7, Lati-
mer, Dacres, and Scroop, honourably arayed ;
with many noble knyghts and gentylmen, rychly
and honnestly arayd, and in lyk wys waring
goode (gold) chaines."
After describing some preliminary ceremonies
which were gone through in the king's chamber,
126 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
the story continues, " A lytyll after, the qwene
was, by the said lords and company, brought out
of her chammer to the church, cronned with a
varey ryche cronne of gold, garnished with
pierrery and perles. Sche was led on the right
hand by the archbyschop of York, and on the
left hand by the erle of Surrey. Hyr trayne
was borne by the countess of Surrey, a gentylman
huscher helpyng her. The sayd qwene was nobly
acompeyned with her ladyes rychly arayd, that
is to weyt, the said countess of Surrey arayd in
a ryche robbe of cloth of gold ; the two ladyes
Neville, the lady Lille, the lady Stannely, and
the lady Guilleford, in riche apparell; and all the
others followynge had ryche collers and channes
upon their necks, and good juells
" Thus the sayd qwene was conveyde to
the sayd churche, and placed neare to the font,
maistresse Denton, hyr maistresse, being all way es
neer hyr; and all hyr noble companye standing
in order on the left syd of the churche. Incon-
tynent came the Right Reverend Father in God,
my lord the archbyschop of Glasco, accompayned
with the prelates, all in pontificalls, and other
notables, folks of the churche.
" Then the kynge was brought by a varey fayre
companye, consisting of hys sayd brother, the
archbyschop of Saunt Andrew, and of the lordes
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 1*27
abouffe said, hys steward, chammerlayn, the
constable, and the marischall, with all their staffes
of their offices, and other nobles, knyghts, squyers,
and gentlemen, richely and honnestly arayd, and
with good chaynnes. My lord of Hamylton
borre his swerd before hym. His officers of
armes war in their cotts, and all his nobles stode
in order on the right syd of the churche.
" Then the kyng commyn neere to the
qwene, maid reverence, and she to him, varey
humbly. The kynge was in a gowne of white
da mask e, figured with gold, and lined with sar-
sanet. He had on a jackette with slyffs of cram-
syn satyn, the lists of blak velvett, under that
sam a doublet of cloth of gold, and a payre of
scarlatt rosys. His shurt braded with thred of
gold, hys bonnet blak, with a ryche rubay, and
his swerd about hym.
" The qwene was arayd in a rich robbe lyke
hymselfe, horded of cramsyn velvet, and lyned
of the self. Sche had a varey riche collar of
gold, of pyerrery and perles, round her neck, and
the cronne upon hyr hed ; her hayr hangyng.
Betvvyx the said cronne and the hayre, was a
varey riche coyfe hangyng downe behynde the
whole length of the bod}'.
" Then the noble maryage was performed by
the said archbyschop of Glasco ; and the arch-
T2S LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
byschop of York, in presence of all, red the
bulles of our Holy Father, the Pope of Rome,
consentynge therto.
" Thys doon, the trompett's blew for joy ; and
the kynge being bareheaded, and holding her by
the ryght hand, was conveyed through the sayd
companye to the Hygh Awter. Before the wich
was drest a place for them two to knell, upon
ryche cuschyns of cloth of gold. After the
oraysone doon and lastyng the Letany, which
was songe and said by the archbyschop, the
kynge withdrew himselfe to his travers, of blew
and red fraunged, wich stode on the left syde,
and ther setted himself in a ryche chayre. In
such wys the qwene into her awne travers of
black, wich was on the right side, and satt downe
in a ryche chayre also. The Letany ended, the
sayd archbyschop began ne the Masse, and soe
they retourned into the place wher they war
before, abydynge there during the time of the
Masse.
" At the Gospell they maid their offering, and
before the Saunt Canon she was anoynted. After
wich the kynge gaffe hyr the sceptir in hyr haund.
Then was songen Te Deurn Laudamus, and two
prclattshelde the cloth upon them duryng the rema-
nent of the Masse. That and all the ceremonyes
accomplysched, ther was brought by the lordes
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 129
bved and wyn, in ryche potts, and ryche
cupps."
The ceremonies of the banquet are then set
forth with equal minuteness, together with the
minstrel's music, and the dancing which followed*
" At the hour of even songe," the herald con-
tinues, " the kynge acompayned by hys noblesse,
and those of the quene, but without hyr, war
conveyed to the churche, where the abbat of the
place did the service. ... At even grett
number of fyers were maid thorough the toune of
Edenborougb."
The king attended mass next morning at ten
o'clock, " doon by hys chapelle and one of the
Religyous." " On the 10th day of the sayd
monneth, being Saunt Lawrens day, the quene
was led to the Byghe churche, acompayned of
her noble trayn, and of the ladyes of the countre
honnestly appoynted. Before hyr was prepared
an awter rychely enorned with vary ryche
ymaiges." On the arrival of the king, " the
mass began to be synge by ane of the Religyous
of the place, and by the syngers. At the offring,
the king and quene both offred togeder." The
rest of the day was passed in festivity and in
jousts, " in the basse court below the wyndows."
Within ten years after these brilliant scenes
the kingdoms of Scotland and England were
130 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
at war with each other, and on the 9th of Sep-
tember 1513, the gay career of James was cut
short in the fatal battle of Flodden. The
leader of the English army on that day was
the same earl of Surrey who filled so distin-
guished a place in the Scottish court at Holy
Rood; and his master was Henry VIII., the
brother of queen Margaret. So short-lived is
the joy of the world, so hollow is its friendship.
If we are sometimes dazzled by their bright
show, as we may fancy the spectators of the
splendour just nowdescribed to have been, a
little reflection will reveal their true nature. Just
as we may suppose some humble Canon in his
stall or in his cell, while the whole abbey and
palace seemed turned upside down for joy,
calmly looking on, and thinking of other days of
mirth which he had perhaps himself witnessed in
the abbey, and of the forgetfulness which had
overwhelmed the chief actors in them. Seriously,
but without gloom, he would anticipate the ex-
tinction of the lights and the minstrelsy ; and in
his view, the coarse habit of S. Augustin would
seem a more befitting garb for a pilgrim than
cloth of gold or crimson velvet; and the sober
life of a Religious, happier than a courtier's; and
the vision of the blessed court of heaven, a nobler
object of desire than the gay pageant of chivalry.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 131
A few more notices will close the history of
Holy Rood abbey. The building of the palace
adjoining it was continued by John duke of
Albany, who governed the kingdom as regent
during the minority of James V. In 1516, Sir
John Scharp, one of the chaplains, was appointed
keeper of the palace, with an annual salary of ten
merks, and an occasional grant of money for a
gown at Christmas. He continued to receive
these for more than thirty years.
James V. resided here only occasionally. Yet
he authorized sums of money to be paid " for
the new work in the abbey of Holyrudhouse."
This was probably the towers which stand at the
north-west corner of the palace, and on which the
king's name was visible, not long ago, in black
letter, under a niche. In 1537, his young queen,
Magdalene of Valois, died of fever, at the age of
sixteen, and was buried with solemn pomp in the
church of Holy Rood. Four years and a half
afterwards, his own remains were brought from
Falkland where he died, and were laid beside
her in the same tomb.
In the earl of Hertford's invasion, in 1544,
the English army " brent the abbey called Holy-
rode House, and the pallice adjoynyng to the
same." It was then that the brazen font was
carried away by Sir Richard Lee, who inscribed
132 LECTURES, ETC.
upon it the following words in Latin : " When
Leith, a towne of good account among the Scots,
and Edinborough, their chief city, were on fire,
Sir Richard Lee, knight, saved me from burning,
and brought me into England. And I, being
mindful of this so great a benefit, whereas before
I was wont to serve for baptizing none but king's
children, have now willingly offered my service
even to the meanest of the English nation. Lee
the victor, would have it so. — Farewell. In the
year of our Lord, 1544, and of the reign of king
Henry VIII. 36."
After the battle of Pinkie, in 1547, the Pro-
tector Somerset gave orders for the destruction
of Holy Rood. The English army was encamp-
ed near Leith. " Thear stode southwestward
from our camp," says the historian, " a monas-
terie ; they call it Holy Roode abbey. Sir
Walter Bonham and Edward Chamberlayne gat
lycense to suppresse it ; whereupon these com-
missioners, makyng first theyr visitation thear,
they found the moonks all gone, but the churche
and mooche parte of the house well covered with
leade. Soon after, they pluct of the leade, and
had down the bels, which wear but two ; and
according to the statute, did somewhat hearby
disgrace the house. As touching the moonkes,
bicause they wear gone, they put them to theyr
pencions at large."
LECTURE V.
4* Dear Brethren of the Holy Gild; — Thus
much of the history of Holy Rood falls within
the plan of our present readings. The abbey
seems never to have recovered from the visitation
of the English commissioners. And the event-
ful year 1560 was at hand, which closed the
existence of monasticism in Scotland, at least for
a long and dreary time. To us, who can now
look back on the causes and the issue of that
convulsion, it appears a consequence to have been
expected from the inroads which the spirit of the
world had made even on the domain of religion. It
is impossible to give a faithful picture of that age,
without acknowledging the humiliating fact. Such
a confession is in no way inconsistent with the
defence of the Religious Orders in general ; for it
is only unfair reasoners who condemn a system
on account of its abuses, or its decay, if its merits
can be proved by other means. But this is not
the time to speak of the dissolution of our mon-
asteries. It is my aim at present to recal their
134 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
beauty and usefulness to your thoughts, while
they were serving the ends of Divine Providence,
and fulfilling the intentions of their founders.
And yet the line of good abbats of Holy Rood
ends in one all unworthy to fill their seat ; a
natural son of king James V., and named to the
abbacy when he was a child. From such a be-
ginning, the end might have been looked for.
He joined the new religion in 1559, and, in the
next year he sat in the parliament which approved
of the confession of faith. In 1561, he married,
and received, in 1565, a grant of crown lands in
Orkney and Zetland from queen Mary. A few
years afterwards she added the gift of a part of
the abbacy of Holy Rood. In 1569, he ex-
changed it with Adam Bothwell, bishop of
Orkney, for the temporalities of his see ; and he
was made earl of Orkney in 1581.
In the burgh of the Canongate we have a
lasting monument of the civilizing influence of
the Canons of Holy Rood, whose name it per-
petuates. It was probably no more than a ham-
let in the age of king David, lying, as his charter
describes it, between the monastery of Holy Cross
and his burgh of Edwinesburgh. From this
humble beginning it rose, under the fostering
care of the abbats, to be a place of importance.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 135
with offices, markets, and rights of its own, which
succeeding kings confirmed. The abbey church
served its inhabitants as a parish church till after
the change of religion. Its dependence on Holy
Rood was also commemorated in its armorial coat,
in which the miraculous stag, with the cross be-
tween its horns, was blazoned, as we see it now on
the wall of the Tolbooth, with the motto — Sic itur
ad astra, — So we pass to heaven. Historians often
trace the origin of towns to the salutary neighbour-
hood of a monastery. " To these small hamlets,"
saysTytler, "and to the security which they enjoy-
ed from the vicinity of the feudal castle, is to be
traced the first appearance of towns in Scotland,
as in other countries of Europe. Nor were the
rich religious houses less influential than the
royal and baronial castles ; for their proprietors,
themselves the most opulent and enterprising
class in the community, encouraged the industry
of their numerous vassals, and delighted to see
the houses and settlements of wealthy and indus-
trious artiz ans arising under the walls of their
monastery." *
Their influence on the progress of civilization
in general throughout Scotland, is attested freely
by other writers; " The monks were, above all, the
most skilful and assiduous improvers," says the
* Hist, of Scot. ii. 294.
186 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
author of Caledonia* " They had most know-
ledge, from what they had seen in other lands ; they
had most capital ; they possessed the greatest num-
ber of hands,' having many villeyns (servants) ;
and the monks and their men, enjoying more quiet
security and exemption, were able to make greater
agricultural exertions. They cultivated the wastes;
they subdued the woodlands; they rendered what
was already arable more productive. And those
improvements they enclosed sometimes by living
hedges, and often by wooden fences. They also
pursued the useful practice of drainage. And
they, moreover, gave a value to all those im-
provements, by facilitating the communications of
a rugged country, by making roads upon the
Roman models, and by building bridges." And
again he says, " The monks were every where, for
ages, the improvers themselves, and the instruc-
tors of others in the most useful arts. They had
the merit of making many a blade of grass grow
where none grew before. Even Iona had orchards,
during the rugged times of the ninth century,
till the Vikingr ruined all."f Nor was it only
in agriculture that they excelled. The history
of the Canongate is an illustration of their skill
in other things. " We may learn from the
cartularies," says Chalmers in another place3
* i. 804. f lb. i. 310.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 137
" that the monks were the earliest Gild Breth-
ren, and they had exclusive privileges of trade,
and of fishery, when boroughs had scarcely an
existence."*
It was under the very shadow of the Cross, as u
were, that this old burgh of the Canongate grew
and flourished. At the parish altar in the abbey
church its citizens worshipped, and they rested
in its cemetery in death. The good religious
were their spiritual fathers, and cared for their
souls as well as for their temporal prosperity.
Their corporate trades had altarages in the church,
for Christian artizans have always had a great
love for the honour of their Divine Lord and His
Saints. Many of these are especially venerated
by them, because they too were humble workers,
and knew, in their time, the hardships and the
weariness of a life of toil. Among the lowliest
are some of those who came nearest to our Lord
himself. His own blessed hands plied the tools
of a carpenter till he was thirty years of age, in
subjection to his reputed father, S. Joseph, the
patron of artizans, and therefore of our Holy
Gild. Thus you see that the Catholic Church
not only leads the children of toil to forget at
times their hard and painful lot, by providing
intervals of refreshment and heavenly sustenance
* Caledonia, i. 782.
138 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
for their fainting spirits, but she makes the very
burden of labour a bond of union with the blessed
who have entered into eternal rest. Thus,
by her transforming power, the bitter waters
of this world are changed into sweetness for her
children. As the artificer of old repaired on
some holy day to the altar of his patron in the
abbey church, many a tender, happy thought
must have filled his heart, while he remembered,
perhaps, the humble condition of S. Anne, or the
voluntary submission of S. Crispin to the labour
of shoemaking, for the love of God and the zeal
of souls. Their very images, so full of sweetness,
as they smiled upon him from the lofty window
or the sculptured niche, would live in his memory
for days to come. They would check the rising
emotion of envy in his heart, or of weariness, or
of anxiety for the future, for they told of patient
endurance, and of a crown painfully won in a state
of life like his own. He felt that he was not alone
in his humble calling ; that it, too, had its repre-
sentatives at the court of heaven. Their foot-
steps lay still fresh in the path before him, rough
though it was, and he trode it bravely after them.
And while the thought of them buoyed him up
with hopes superior to his outward condition, and
gave to it a real dignity, it appealed with serious
meaning to his wealthy brother. It bade him
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 139
reflect that if Christ and His Blessed Mother,
and many of His dearest saints, had lived on earth
at the same time as himself, they would have
been strangers in the well-furnished dwelling
where he resided. They would have been
seldom seen in its neighbourhood, except
perhaps among the poor, whom the thoughtless
put aside with disdain. And this reflection would
lessen his admiration for comfort, and ease, and
riches ; and he would be fain to go at times to
seek among lowlier homes than his own for some
familiar image of humble life, which might recal
the cottage of S. Joseph at Nazareth, or the work-
shop of S. Paul at Corinth. The contrast which
such habits of thought present to the selfish and
proud isolation of man from man, and of one
class of society from another now, must occur to
every one.
The changes which have befallen this ancient
burgh of the Canongate since the destruction of
Holy Rood will not engage us at present. It
was for long the residence of the court and the
nobility of Scotland. Many of its houses retain
the traces of their former magnificence.
Another example of the care of the church,
even for her erring children, is afforded by the
right of sanctuary which abbey churches formerly
possessed. We are reminded of it by the immu-
1 JrO LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
nities which belong to the precincts of Holy Rood,
though lawyers and antiquaries tell us that these
depend not on the former sanctity of the monas-
tery, but on the dignity of a royal palace. Ne-
vertheless, the one went before the other, and it
may have at least suggested the merciful provi-
sion which has lasted till this day. It was much
more comprehensive, sheltering not only debtors
but criminals for a certain time, till justice in a
lawless age could assert her authority, and gain an
impartiiil trial for the offenders. This beneficent
result of the institution of sanctuary, is allowed
even by indifferent or hostile witnesses. Thus
Mr Chambers, in his Book of Scotland, observes
— " Throughout the desolating violence of the
middle ages, and from the seventh to the eleventh
century in particular, the most savage usages pre-
vailed ; the stronger ruled the weaker with a
sceptre of iron ; and as for laws, they were en-
tirely lost sight of. Private strife, homicide,
murder, and robbery, were every-day occurrences
in the nations of Europe ; and had it not been
for the dexterously wielded authority of the Rom-
ish Church, which always met with respect, and
served as a barrier to human passions, the world
would have presented the appearance of one im-
mense slaughter-house. Under circumstances
like these, it was fortunate for the human race
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 141
that a corporation of men was suffered to exist,
endowed with the beneficent privilege of exercis-
ing humanity, and of interposing its arm to shel-
ter the unfortunate. The kingdom of Scotland
possessed its sanctuaries of more or less notoriety.
Every great monastic institution gave protection
to civil and criminal refugees ; and the existence,
till this day, of girth-gaits, or roads to and from
sanctuaries, gives evidence of the concourse of
sinners and criminals who flocked thither."* The
protection of sanctuary usually lasted only for
forty days, after which the trial took place ; and
notorious offenders, who had often abused it,
were not screened even for that time. The viola-
tion of sanctuary was justly esteemed a most
heinous offence ; for otherwise the church could
not have maintained her privilege against the
armed force of revenge.
When the houses of religion were overturned,
this immunity also perished. But the residence
of the king was endowed with the privilege of
screening debtors from the law, on the principle
that the monarch, while holding his court, should
not be deprived of the assistance or advice of his
subjects, on any misfortune befalling them from a
civil cause. The privilege probably attended the
court wherever it happened to be. But Holy Rood
* Book of Scotland, 190, 194.
14*2 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
alone, of the royal palaces in Scotland, enjoyed it
permanently. The earliest instance of its use on
record is in 1531.
In Edinburgh there used to be other places
of refuge for debtors besides Holy Rood. One
of them was the Kings' Stables, at the west
end of the Grassmarket,* where the horses and
equipments were kept for the tournaments which
often took place in that neighbourhood. Per-
haps, as Chambers remarks, the sacredness of
the chapel of our Blessed Ladye, which once
stood near the spot, may have aided in creating
the privilege of sanctuary. But it certainly
afforded a shelter for debtors for twenty-four
hours, as lately as the year 1805.
Another privileged spot was the old Scottish
Mint, at the foot of Gray's Close and Todd rick's
Wynd, in the Cowgate. Its right of shelter was
used since the beginning of this century. But
Holy Rood and its precincts alone possess this
immunity now. They include the houses lying
around the palace, and the whole of the Queen's
Park. The western limit of the sanctuary was
formerly marked by a cross called the Girth
Cross, standing " at the foot of the Canongate,
opposite to the outer gate of the abbey," as
Maitland describes it. -f* In his time, its re-
.* Book of Scotland, 195. f Hist, of Edin. 153.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 143
mains consisted of three steps, the base, and the
shaft.
The history of Holy Rood palace, since the
destruction of the abbey, has a tragic interest,
especially for Scotsmen. It is associated with
the declining fortunes of the Stewart family ;
Queen Mary's name is linked with it in a thou-
sand painful ways ; and her grandson, king
Charles I., too, has a place in its recollections.
His son, king Charles II., finished the building,
as we now see it ; and king James, the seventh
of the name, passed some time here before he
ascended the throne of England. It is wrorthy
of remark in passing, that he restored the ador-
able sacrifice in the chapel of the palace. Some
of the sacred vessels which he gave for the use of
the altar are still preserved in several missions in
this country. Two chalices are in the possession
of a venerable prelate in the North; a monstrance
is in use at S. Margaret's convent; and to the
chapel of the same convent also belong a silver
thurible, and a boat for incense. And the little
lamp which burns before the Blessed Sacrament
in the cloister chapel at S. Marie's, once hung
in Holy Rood chapel.
The editor of the Charters of Holy Rood, whose
Preface I have often cited, says, " in truth it is in
vain for a Scotsman, writing of Holy Rood, to
144 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
resist the religion of the place. Whatever be
our creed or opinions, the palace of our . old
kings is to us the ko\!o<pQopqv bu^a ntkombm — The
ruined home of the sons of Pelops — the scene
of the tragedies of a noble and a doomed race ; —
' These ancient ruins
We never tread upon, but we set foot
Upon some reverend history.'"
Few traces remain of the monastic buildings,
besides the fragment of the church. The west-
ern doorway and the lower part of the bell-
tower, at the north-west corner, are very perfect.
The oldest part of the building seems to be
on the south side, where there must have been
once a communication with the abbey. The
north side is much more recent in its style. An
ornamented doorway leads through it into the
ground of the cemetery. The buttresses on this
side are adorned with delicately carved niches
for statues ; over some of them is a ccat of arms,
surmounted by a mitre, the cognizance of the
lord abbat Crawfurd, who rebuilt the church in
the fifteenth century. The ruined chapel, as
it now stands, is only the nave of the abbey
church. There are traces of the transepts,
or arms of the cross ; and the choir once ex-
tended far to the east of the present window,
which fills up the original arch connecting the
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 145
nave and the transepts. " The ground around it
seems to have been used at a remote period as a
cemetery," says Chambers, in his Walks in Edin-
burgh ; " for, at every occasional excavation, vast
quantities of bones are dug up. Some workmen,
about a twelvemonth ago,* in clearing out what
appeared to be the overwhelmed remains of a
cloister, found a skull, which had been used by
the religious tenant of the little cell, as the pedes-
tal of a crucifix, and a useful memorandum for
the direction of his ghostfy studies. That these
were its purposes was proved by a hole in the
crown, and the appropriate legend, in old faded
characters over the brow, ' jftUmcnto j&lcni.' "-f-
The thoughts which were suggested to us by
the churchyard of S. Cuthbert, may with advan-
tage return to us here, as we stand over the graves
of many hundreds of the citizens of the Canon-
gate, of kings and queens, and noble persons, and
devout religious, of many abbats, and bishops.
How instinct with the living principle is this
solitary spot, in the view of faith ! What a re-
cord of the past lies hidden within it, one day to
be revealed in our sight. Not the humblest
particle of Christian dust here enclosed has pe-
rished. These eyes of ours will see it reani-
mated. The Catholic Church has made herself
* This was written in 182-5. t Walks in Edinburgh, 141,
K
146
LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
answerable for it, and most tenderly and faith-
fully she has provided against the coming of her
Lord to claim it. A cemetery means in Greek a
sleeping place, or a place of rest, where the bodies
of the Christian dead repose in Christ, till He
comes to judgment. For many ages it has been
the custom of the Catholic Church, according to
the direction of the Apostle, S. Paul, to hallow
by the word of God and prayer the enclosures
where she would gather the dust of her deceased
children. This she did, partly to assert her right
over this material world for the benefit of the
faithful, and partly because she knew that hostile
influences were at work, in places and in ways
which our senses cannot perceive, but not there-
fore the less really or fatally. All power in hea-
ven and in earth had been given to her divine
Lord, and she deemed His promise no dead let-
ter, when He said, that whatever she should ask
in His name, He would do it. With the simple
confidence of faith, she acted upon it, and in
imitation of His own example, she besought Him
to grant a certain spiritual efficacy to the use of
material things. She remembered that when
He would cure a blind man, He made clay with
His spittle and anointed his eyes, when a word
from His Almighty voice would have sufficed.
She therefore feared not to ask that, when her
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 147
children should kindle a taper, which she for that
purpose had blessed, or should sprinkle water
hallowed for the same end, it would please God
to drive far from them the spirits of darkness.
Not that she imagined that in themselves of their
nature there was any connection between the
means which she employed, and the object which
she desired to attain; but she chose material
forms which should represent, in a manner, the
invisible effects which she prayed might follow their
use. Thus, to take from innumerable examples,
the same which I mentioned just now, the lighted
taper made a beholder naturally think of the
cheerfulness and security which attend the dissi-
pation of darkness; and water, which is the type
of purity, suggested the idea of deliverance from
all impure influences. The line which separates
her practice from superstition is broad and clear.
She depends on a divine promise for every benefi-
cent result which she teaches us to look for, from
the fulfilment of the conditions which she has
imposed. Superstition attaches a mysterious
virtue to the charm or the incantation itself,
without regard to divine agency at all. I speak
not of those darker kinds of it, which profess to
derive their power from the co-operation of the
Evil One.
Acting on this principle, when the Church
148 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
would lay the body of one of her departed chil-
dren in the earth from which it was taken, she
reflected that the prince of this world has obtained
dominion over matter, and that lie must be
driven out by a stronger than himself. And it is
not fitting that the receptacle of sacramental
graces, and especially of the Blessed Eucharist,
should be exposed to the unhallowed contact of the
spirits of darkness and impurity. She therefore
fenced off a space of ground, generally around a
church, and in the midst of it she set up the en-
sign of the cross, at which devils tremble. In
memory of the five blessed wounds by which the
Redeemer vanquished the ghostly enemy of man,
five crosses are, by the Pontifical, directed to be
fixed in the new cemetery. The bishop arrives
in procession with his ministers ; and after he has
spoken to the people from his seat, and explained
what he is going to do, each cross is lighted up
with three candles, and the solemn rite begins.
In the litanies of the saints, he invokes the aid of
those holy ones who have passed through the
portals of death, and now live to pray for the good
estate of us who follow them. Then with a vessel
of blessed water, he perambulates the ground of
the cemetery. Psalms and prayers are added, to
beseech Almighty God, " the Shepherd of eter-
nal glory, the light and the honour of wisdom,
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 149
the guardian and the strength of prudence, the
health of the sick, the soundness of the strong,
the solace of mourners, the life of the just, the
glory of the humble, that this cemetery of His
servants may be guarded from every stain of
impurity, and from the snares of unclean spirits,
and that the bodies of men coming into that
place may obtain everlasting integrity ; that those
who have received the sacrament of baptism, and,
till their last breath, have persevered in the Ca-
tholic Faith, and have commended their bodies,
when life was over, to rest in this cemetery, when
the trumpets of the angels shall sound, may re-
ceive, soul and body, the rewards of eternal joys,
through Christ." Other prayers follow in the
same sublime strain ; and the rite ends by the
procession entering the church, when the adorable
Sacrifice of the altar is offered up. The language
of the Secret alludes to the n^stery of the Re-
deemer's Burial, which to the eye of faith is so vi-
vidly recalled, when one of His disciples, and es-
pecially of His poor, is borne to the churchyard.
But there is a prayer in another rite which the
Pontifical contains, for the reconciliation of a
cemetery, so noble and majestic, that I cannot
forbear from citing it.
" O merciful Lord, who hast willed that the
potter's field should be purchased with the price of
150 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Thy blood, for the burial of pilgrims, we beseech
Thee, to deign to remember this mystery of Thy
great mercy. For Thou, O Lord, art our potter ;
Thou art the field of our rest ; Thou art the price
of this field ; Thou also hast given it and hast re-
ceived it ; Thou with the price, and in the price
of Thy life-giving blood, hast granted us to rest;
Thou, therefore, O Lord, who art the most mer-
ciful pardoner of our offence, the most long-suf-
fering judge, the most superabundant pitier of
Thy judgment, hiding the judgment of Thy just
severity behind the mercy of Thy gracious re-
demption, be present to hear us, and effect our re-
conciliation ; and, in mercy, purify and reconcile
this cemetery, the burying-place of Thy pilgrims,
who expect the dwelling-place of a heavenly
country; and raise again the bodies of those who
are buried, or are to be buried here, by the power
and the mercy of Thy resurrection, to the glory
of incorruption, not condemning but glorifying
them : Who art to come to judge the living and
the dead, and the world by fire. Amen." Thus
does the church hallow the sleeping-place of the
departed. The words of the poet express her
solicitude : —
" The sixt had charge of them now being dead,
In seemely sort their corses to engrave,
And deck with dainty flowres their brydall bed.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH, 151
That to their heavenly spouse both sweete and brave
They might appeare, when He their souls shall save.
The wondrous workmanship of God's own mould,
Whose face he made all beastes to fear, and gave
AH in his hand, even dead we honour should.
Ah, dearest God, me graunt I dead be not defould ! " *
You will meet with many persons now who affect
to ridicule the superstitious notion, as they call it,
of lying in holy ground. But we have elsewhere ob-
served the lingering attachment to the faithful prac-
ticeof the Church, in the great veneration which the
Scottish peasantry pay to their ancient cemeteries.
And strange to say, after the principles of the
Reformation had reigned supreme for two cen-
turies in this very city, when the cemetery of the
presbyterian chapel in Buccleuch Street was en-
closed, in the course of last century, so deeply
rooted was the feeling in favour of resting in
hallowed earth, that application had to be made
to the Episcopalian bishop, to consecrate the
ground as he best could.-f-
But to us it is sufficient evidence that the con-
tempt which prevails around us for this consoling
provision of the Church is not founded in sound
reason nor in religion, to mark the decay of
reverence for the bodies of the Christian dead,
which daily shocks the sense of every feeling heart.
* Faerie Queene, i. x. 42.
f See Lawson's Hist, of the Scot. Episc. Church, 318.
15*2 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
To understand the cause of this it is only neces-
sary to remember that the efficacy and reality of
sacramental grace are no doctrine of the Reform-
ed Faith, that it denies the inhabitation of the
Lord Jesus in the bodies of His disciples in the
Blessed Eucharist. Hence, when the life has
passed from one of them, it is regarded not as
the precious remains of what was lately the living
temple of the Holy Ghost, but as merely inani-
mate clay ; and unless natural affection, or com-
mon decency, or superstitious dread forbid, it is
handled and cast aside without ceremony. Oh, if
the indignities could be summed up, which have
been heaped upon our Blessed Lord in the dead
bodies alone of His beloved poor, since the day
when He ceased to be adored in the old churches
of our city, as the light and the glory of His earthly
temples no less than of His heavenly, it would make
a total which might fill uswithdismay. Thus to the
very extremities of our social system does the ac-
ceptance or rejection of the belief in the adorable
Eucharist penetrate with salutary or with baneful
influence. This blessed mystery was the source
of the grandeur of our old churches ; it also
secured for our churchyards the reverence and
affection of Christians for its sake. It pleaded
with them for the honour of the lifeless remains
of the poor. It was every where the master idea
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 153
of life, the bond of social order, the very heart
of the Christian system.
But it is more especially in the cemetery of a
Religious House, that we are reminded of the
care of the Church for the departed. They
were never forgotten as long as the chaunt,
and the solemn rite, and the life of prayer con-
tinued in the abbey. " When a procession
went through the churchyards, a stand was made
in the cemetery of the monks," says the author
of British Monachism, " with the psalm De
prqfundis, and the absolution of all souls, there
and every where sleeping in Christ. When they
came to the church, a like stand was made, and
an absolution of the souls of the abbats there
resting, and of all faithful persons deceased."*
Most touching are the ceremonies attending the
burial of a monk, as they are related in the Mites
and Monuments of the abbey church at Durham.
" At such times as it appeared to them that ac-
companied him in his sickness that he was not
likely to live, they sent for the prior's chap-
lain, who staid with him tiil he yielded up the
ghost. Then the brother was sent for whose
office it was to put on his feet socks and boots,
and so to wind him in his cowl and habit. Then
is he from thence immediately carried to a cham-
* Fosbrooke's British Monachism, vii.
154 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
ber, called the dead man's chamber, in the farmery
or infirmary, there to remain till night. The
prior's chaplain, as soon as he is removed and
conveyed into the deadman's chamber, locks the
chamber door where he died, and carrieth the
key to the prior. At night he is removed from
the deadman's chamber into S. Andrew's chapel,
adjoining to the said chamber and farmery, there
to remain till eight of the clock in the morning,
the chapel being a place only ordained for solemn
devotion. The night before the funeral, two
monks, either in kindred or kindness the nearest
to him, were appointed by the prior to be especial
mourners, sitting all night on their knees at the
dead corpse's feet. Then were the children of the
ambrie, sitting on their knees in stalls or seats,
on either side of the corpse, appointed to read
David's psalms all night over, incessantly, till the
said hour of eight in the morning ; at which time
the corpse was conveyed to the chapter-house,
where the prior and the whole convent met it,
and there did say their Dirige and devotion ; it
not being permitted that any should come near
the chapter-house during the time of their devo-
tion and prayers for his soul. And after their
devotion, the dead corpse was carried through
the parlour into the centry garth, where he was
buried, and a chalice of wax laid upon his breast,
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 155
having his blue bed holden over his grave by four
monks during his funeral. And at the time of his
burial, there wa&.but one peal rung for him. The
monks were also accustomed, every day after din-
ner, to go through the cloister, in at the cloister-
door, and so through the entry in under the prior's
lodgings, and strait into the centry garth, where
all the monks were buried, and there they all
stood bareheaded, a certain long space, praying
amongst the tombs and throughs, for all the souls
of their brethren who were buried there. And
when they had done their prayers, they returned
to the cloister and studied till three of the clock,
then they went to even song. This was their
daily exercise after dinner."*
In aq^es when it was esteemed a great act of
charity to remember the dead, the monks were
remarkable for their devotion to it. Besides the
daily commemoration of them in general, they cele-
brated the obits of benefactors on the adversaries
of their decease. Every monastery had its ne-
crology, in which their names were written, with
the date of their passage, that they might not be
forgotten as the day came round ; and one reli-
gious house made interest with another to unite
with it in keeping these obits. Father Hay re-
lates that the Canons of Holy Rood, " besides
* Rites and Monuments of the Abbey Church of Durham, p. 88,
156 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
the catalogues of the saints, in which they had
written the birthdays of the holy martyrs, kept
two kalendars, brought down from the first times,
by the care of the Religious, in an unbroken line;
in which they had arranged the names of brethren
and benefactors, and the days were marked on
which their memory was celebrated by an annual
service."
" It is easy to account for this general solici-
tude," says our favourite author of Mores Catho-
lici. " From the peace of the living to the peace
of the dead, the transition of thought was natural.
The monks who provided for the former had
leisure to study what was conducive to the latter ;
they had time to think of those who had departed
to the other world, and hence, with fervent and
fraternal love, they sought to secure for every
man a tranquil grave, and an eternal rest. They
were ingenious in exercising charity to the dead.
In the Abbey of Einsiedelin there was an anni-
versary office for the souls of the poor strange
pilgrims who had died there. c Let not the
brethren slumber/ says Caesar of Heisterbach,
' when they chaunt for the dead ; because, as
knights are gathered together to a tournament,
so flock souls to the office of the dead/ Men ob-
served with what fidelity and reverence monks
of all orders sung the requiem of those whose
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 157
souls were commended to their prayers. More-
over, the Christian world could not be heedless
of the fact, that it was in a monastery, that of
Cluny, under Odilo, in 998, that the feast of
All Souls, that most affecting, most tender com-
memoration, was first celebrated, which, in the
following year, was regularly instituted for the
whole church by Pope Silvester II. It was evi-
dent that the interests of the dead were most
studied and attended to in these communities.
What could be more natural than that men should
desire to come in personally for a share of the
benefit ? Those who best knew what passed in
monasteries, from being themselves their inmates,
may be proposed as taking the lead in manifesta-
tions of this desire. Thus the holy founder of
the celebrated abbey in the forest of Fontevraud,*
being on his travels, and perceiving himself about
to die, had no other fear but that of not being
interred in his beloved house. s O Fontevraud,
Fontevraud,' he cried, < I wished so much to rest
with you.' Sending for the bishop of the city,
he said to him, ' Father, know that I do not wish
to be buried at Bethlehem, where God deigned
to be born of a Virgin, nor at Jerusalem, near
the holy sepulchre, nor at Rome, among the
martyrs; it is at Fontevraud, no where but at
* B. Robert of Arbrissel, who died in 1116.
158 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Fontevraudj that I wish to repose.' There ac-
cordingly Dom Martene found his tomb at the
side of the altar."* Hence it was that so many
of the faithful desired to be buried in a monastery.
Sometimes in dying they assumed the habit of a
religious, which, however, they could not lay aside
if they recovered. Hence our abbey churches and
cemeteries are so full of tombs. Some of the monu-
mental stones in Holy Rood have been removed
from the churchyard into the church. They are
of great age. Several of them are recognised as
belonging to persons of the clerical order, by the
chalice upon the stone. The crosses which are
sculptured upon one or two of them are of re-
markable beauty. No collection has ever been
made of the legends upon them, as far as I can
learn. Any one who would take the necessary
pains to decipher them, would render a great
service to the illustration of Christian antiquities.
The tombs of knights, and burgesses, and the
members of incorporated trades, may be distin-
guished by their usual cognizance. In a vault
in the south-east corner, the bones of the royal
family of Scotland are collected, though it was
not there that they were originally buried.
The old wall running from the Watergate
northwards, along the Abbeyhill, seems to have
* Mor. Catb. x. 8.
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 159
been the boundary of the enclosure on that side.
There is a curious turreted house adjoining it,
which local tradition calls queen Mary's bath. On
the south side of Holy Rood there is an enclo-
sure called S. Anne's Yard, once the site of a
chapel, dedicated, as Maitland thinks probable,
in honour of S. Anne ; whence her name was
given to the place where her chapel stood. In
the hollow under the Salisbury Crags there was
a fishpond belonging to the abbey, which has
long since disappeared.
And now it only remains for us, ere we quit
this sacred place, to make an act of homage to
that victorious Cross, whose name was given to
the monastery, and whose precious fragment was
enshrined as its most valued treasure. What its
influence effected here may be regarded as a type
of its moral triumphs throughout the world.
Where beasts of prey once made their dens, the
servants of the Holy Rood erected a house of
prayer ; and the abbey bell succeeded the horn
of the huntsman. By degrees the face of nature
began to wear a more civilized aspect; a thriv-
ing town took the place of the rugged forest.
The names and traditions of the Canons are
stamped upon the place ; their influence has been
salutary, and men have blessed their footsteps.
So, from the hour that the adorable Cross of the
160 LECTURES ON THE RELIGIOUS
Lord was planted in the waste, howling wilder-
ness of this world, a change not unlike this
began to be effected. Savage natures grew tame
under its power, or they were expelled by it ;
prayer and sacred rite and acts of mercy became
the daily business of men who owned its mysteri-
ous sign. A way of communication between
earth and heaven was opened, by which graces
might pass to enrich the poor, and to humble the
proud. The great rule which its servants have
ever proclaimed has been, " Seek first the king-
dom of God and His justice, and all these things
shall be added unto you," and this is the maxim
which regulates our Holy Gild. So the civiliza-
tion of the world has advanced as the power of the
Cross made its way. And those who have lived
in view of the Holy Cross, rest beneath it in death ;
it is the last image that meets their fading sight ;
it will be the first which they shall behold when
the trumpet of doom shall awake them. Well
may the devout Cardinal Bona exclaim : —
" Hail ! Blessed Cross, more splendid than
the stars, more beautiful than the moon, more
glorious than the sun, which art adorned with
the Body of the Saviour, as with glittering gems,
and art purpled with the precious Blood of God.
Thou stretchest out thine arms above the stars of
heaven. Hail ! chosen wood, germinating life,
fructifying joy, distilling the oil of gladness, drop-
ANTIQUITIES OF EDINBURGH. 161
ping the balsam of spiritual delights ! Thou art
the salvation of a lost world, the haven of those
in danger, the rule of justice, the teacher of
manners, the strength of combatants, the glory
of conquerors, the reward, and the crown. O
amiable and beloved Cross ! save us all who are
fortified with thy tremendous ensign; that He
who was pleased to use thee as the primary in-
strument of our redemption, may also carry us,
sanctified through thee, to share His glory ; that at
last this our penitence being blissfully consummat-
ed in the Cross, through the ignominy of His Pas-
sion, we may be brought to the glory of His re-
surrection. Amen.''
" Mercie, for Marie's love, of heaven,
That bare the blisful Barne that bought us on the Rood."*
* Chaucer.
411 *
ERRATA.
68,
note, lir
Page
e 1, delete to.
Page
7G, 1
ast line,
Thurible.
Page
104
, 6th line, Whitlierne.
Page
152,
line 18,
for temples r
?ad temple.
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American Libraries
TV News
Understanding 9/11